Semitic Semantics -

I'm a bit of a linguist, I think languages are cool (and useful). Semitic languages are particularly useful and/or interesting to me since 1) I am a Jew, 2) I was born in and live in Israel, 3) have grandparents from Libya (who spoke Arabic), and 4) learn in a yeshiva, where both Hebrew, Aramaic, and a hybrid "dialect" known as "Mishnaic Hebrew," (Hebrew of the Mishnaic period, which is mixed with a lot of Aramaic and a good amount of Greek) are almost must-haves. Whenever I find some linguistic fact of interest I'll post it here.

Rashi, the Jewish Sage of 11th Century France, is famous for his commentaries on the Tanakh Scripture and sometimes he analyzes linguistic associations. For example, in Bereshit (Genesis) in the Torah, Abraham buys a field from a Hittite named "Ephron," in order in which to bury Sarah. The name of the town where the field is located is called "Padan-Aram" in Samaria (the "West Bank") and the name of the cave in which both Sarah and Abraham are buried is called "Machpela." Now here's the interesting thing. The first letter of "Padan" in Hebrew is a "pey," which can only be pronounced "fey," depending of the vowelization. Rashi notes that the Arabic word for "field" is "fadan," and so if one were to say "Fadan Aram" in Arabic, it would mean "the field of Aram." It seems to me, although I cannot confirm this without further study, and certain words in the Arabic language have been pulled over from pre-existing Hebrew and Aramaic words or names and have been slightly adjusted in their meaning and tone. "Fadan" is a perfect example of that and to a degree confirms, through its usage of that word into its lexicon, that Abraham and Sarah were indeed buried in a field in Padan-Aram.

The Hebrew "Akeidah," which means "the binding (of)" in the Torah refers to Abraham's binding of Isaac on the altar on Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem to sacrifice him. As I have said before, Muslim tradition rejects that this occurred and state that Abraham actually went to sacrifice Ishmael in Mecca. The word "Akeidah" in Arabic (aqeedah) is the word for the central religious doctrine of Islam (although I will do some more research on this word). This is interesting in that it does not mean "to bind," or "the binding (of)" but rather is a word delineating a statement of faith. Indeed, in Jewish though the "Akeidah" was an expression of faith, but it was not a word expressing the central religious doctrine of Judaism.

"Al Quds" is another interesting one, meaning "the holy (place or thing or one)," but in this case it's the Muslim name for Jerusalem. The word in Jewish lexicon for Jerusalem is not "Ha Kadosh," the holy place, but the Temple in Jerusalem is known as the "Beit Hamikdash," "the Sanctified House," and in Arabic it has been called "Bait al Maqdis." During the very beginning of Islam, as is historically reported, Jerusalem was not yet an important site for the budding religion of Islam. There would not be a reason for it yet since Muhammad was focusing his resources and manpower on establishing a name for Islam in Mecca and Medina, facing harsh opposition by Jews and Arab pagans there. After Mecca and Medina effectively became the holiest sites of Islam, in which it was centered, Islam incorporated the holy sites of Judaism, which means the incorporation of the Beit Hamikdash as an important site for Muslims. Much of this incorporation of Jerusalem into Islam was not initiated by Muhammad or the heirs from his family, but rather by the Caliph of the Muslim Umayad dynasty. This dynasty was based in Syria, which then ran Palestine as a province. A rift arose between the Umayad Dynasty of Syria and Muhammad's heirs (dynasty) located in Saudi Arabia, and Umar, the Umayad Caliph, took the on the corporation of Jerusalem into Islam as a political project. His intent was to draw power into his own dynasty and to elect himself as the new representative of Islam. Muhammad's family saw this as a deviation from the grass roots-based religion of Islam, a religion of pure faith, as well as from the legacy of Muhammad that should stay within the family. Those who supported the notion that the legacy should stay within Muhammad's family later gained the title "Shi'a" Muslims, and those who rejected dynastic rule later gained the title "Sunni."

The lie of history inherent in the Arabic names for these places lies in the fact that Umar retroactively worked them into the Quranic narrative (by reinterpreting a text) for political reasons after the death of Muhammad. Although I've been told that Sunni's and Shi'ites still pray together, a residual of mutual tension still exists between them. Nevertheless, even the Sunni, who make up the majority of Muslims, have come to fully accept the holiness of Jerusalem, regardless that it was never a part of Muhammad's efforts and certainly against the will of his family. If we can imagine for a moment the status of Jerusalem and Islam today had Umar not done what he did. The Jews would likely be running Jerusalem (as they should) and Islam would be uninterested in controlling it. Had Umar not done this, and had the Jews still established the State of Israel in 1948, it is accurate to say that perhaps the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian conflict, which is based in Jerusalem, would not exist today. The deviation from Islam through Umar is the cause of strife between Jews and Muslims today, and the entirety of the Muslim world accepts this status quo. Therefore, "Al Quds" is not holy.

Messianism Gone Muslim -

I have a friend who wrote a paper on Shabbtai Tzvi, who lived, I believe, some centuries ago in Turkey. Shabbtai Tzvi was a righteous Jew who claimed to be the Messiah, and the whole scandal with him was that he later converted to Islam, and many of his followers also converted. According to my friend, there is much confusion about Tzvi's intent in his conversion to Islam, which is primarily recorded as his converting to save his life, which most Sages opine is allowed with reference to Islam.

There is a Chassidic (Kabbalistic) concept known as "tzim tzum," which loosely means "withdrawal," and it is explained that when G-d created the world, He had to withdraw His Presence from it just enough so that the creations would be able to exist, i.e., He had to make room for everything because His Presence is all-encompassing. It goes on to explain that G-d left sparks of holy light, called "nitzutzim," trapped within the material confines of this world, and through the observance of the Torah, a Jew can release those sparks of light and expose G-d's Presence here. As my friend's paper goes, Shabbtai Tzvi reasoned that many of these sparks of light had become trapped in Islam, which he reasoned was a low spiritual place, and therefore he lowered himself into this place with the intent to somehow gain access to them and to release them into the midst of the world. His "movement" was definitely a Messianic one, and when he entered the sphere of Islam, "converted," his dedicated followers followed with him. As some sources on ancient communities of Jews indicate, the "Donmeh" Muslims of Turkey, whom are recognized as being separate from the rest of the Muslim population, are said to be the converts to Islam and therefore the Jewish descendants of the followers of Shabbtai Tzvi. Although this is not the point of the essay, it could be said that Shabbtai Tzvi was a false Messiah.

However, Tzvi's stance that Islam holds a special power is not at all unfounded. First of all, many of the internal mechanics of Islam function in starkly similar fashion to that of Judaism, enough to spark the interest of a Jew, or at least to persuade a level of respect for it. The very foundation of the religion of Islam was built on its replacement of Judaism, or what Muslims would explain as actually being the pre-Torah revelation by G-d of true submission through all of the figures in the Tanakh (and Jesus). The Qur'an, delivered in the 7th Century, was the physical presentation of this chain of pure faith. Hence, this process of superseding Judaism began in the 7th Century and was still around some hundreds of years later in the Muslim world, and today. The power of truth contained in the religion of Judaism became diminished after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple and the rise of Christianity, which thrived on that truth as does a vampire on blood. Some six hundred years later the religion of Islam was founded and it too thrived on that life force of truth of Judaism. However, by then, a lot of it had been sucked into Christianity and so Islam had two sources from which (it had) to draw. Christianity and Islam both were able to pull Jews into them due to this presence of monotheistic moralistic truth. The more neatly those two religions could present their fulfillment arguments to Jews, glossing over the scars created by grafting narrative to narrative, the better they were at actually persuading Jews that either Christianity or Islam were the fulfillments of Judaism. Whatever truth led a Jew to either of these religions was truth that existed in Judaism, but due to the invasion-like forces of supersessionist propaganda, Christianity and Islam had done a superb job of associating Torah ideas with Christian or Muslim thought.

For example, Christianity and Islam operated by conforming a theological concept found in Judaism to fit either a Christian or Muslim world view, and a Jew who was ill-equipped to recognize the falsehood of such a construction was at danger of joining the ranks of either of those religions. However, lack of knowledge of the Torah is not the entire culprit in those situations, primarily because we are speaking about the time before the mass secularization of Jews in the 19th Century, when Jews became separated from their Torah. There might have been some type of Middle Ages "version of secularization," but for the most part the knowledge of Torah permeated Jewish society in the same way that the knowledge of the Gospels and the Qur'an permeated those respective societies as well. It is most likely that the diminished position of Jews in society under the more cruel of the Muslim rulers (in this case, although Christian in others) created a powerful incentive for persecuted Jews to escape oppression through joining the ranks of the oppressor religion. If we combine all of these elements; inescapable oppression, separation from the Torah, and Islam's similarity to Judaism, we have a powerful formula causing a Jew to teeter into the ranks of Islam. In these cases, the Jew who converted usually adopted a hatefully resentful attitude towards his previously belonging to the Jewish People, and if he rose to any sort of power, he would use it against the Jews. Further, Christianity and Islam both had a way of being suspicious of Jews who could potentially "Judaize" their religions by introducing Jewish elements into them, and so a Jew who converted usually annihilated his previous identification as a Jew as to avoid this. Perhaps this is to what Shabbtai Tzvi alluded when he said that many of the holy sparks of G-dly light had become trapped in Islam. His "conversion" to Islam after claiming to be the Messiah of the Torah, perhaps with his "reconversion" back to Judaism after some time, was intended to lead "at risk" Jews (virtually all of them) to choose Judaism. His Muslim friends and contacts created while he was a "Muslim" would open Muslims up to the goodness of the Jewish People and maybe to the truth of the Torah, (in essence, Judaization) causing them to rescind hateful policies. This maybe would have even led some Muslims to become Jews, because if the similarities were so apparent, then a Muslim could have converted to Judaism just as a Jew converted to Islam. The overall effect would be to cause Jews to be freed from the self-oppressive shackles of spiritual, emotional, and physical destruction caused by Islam's insurgencies into the Jewish soul and entire way of life and would bring about a Messianic age of religious peace and harmony between Judaism and Islam. The sad truth is that Tzvi's attempts, which seemed to understand the situation with beaming clarity, did not function in the way he desired. This is not to say that it would not have worked, but all of the parts that had to fall into place simply did not or at the right time, and so his "movement" essentially failed.

Today a similar situation has, and is developing with regards to Islam and the world. Physically speaking, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world (partially because one who converts to Islam faces ostracism and death upon rescinding the decision). Spiritually, violence, fear, and thuggery have always been excellent ways to gain a following, take Hitler for example and how he "inspired" almost the whole of Germany to partake in decades of genocide and war. 9/11 was a "turning point" in the 21st century history of Islam to those who were previously oblivious to it, largely America and partially Europe. The suicide bombing murders of Israel had been taking place for decades, but the disintegration of the Twin Towers was a macroscopic version of down-town Jerusalem's almost routine coffee shop explosion. After the shock clouds cleared, two major camps were formed, those who were wrought with anger, hate, and the desire to retaliate. The feeble ones were so scared off of their foundations that they sought to detract anger and hatred away from the demonic forces responsible for 9/11 by likening the symbols of death itself to good and themselves to evil!

Hence began a dark phase, which perhaps has not yet ended, where the pressure that these currents in Islam created pushed so hard on the psyches of the targeted that the defense of and association with Islam became one way to deflect further attack and to neutralize fear. By "letting Islam in" to one's heart and to one's country, i.e., the defense of Muslim civil rights at any cost, soul terrorism initiated the breakdown process initiated, analagous to a digestive process whereby enzymes (terrorism) break down pieces of food (target societies). The indispicable tragedy in this line of emotion (not thought) is that it only stimulates confidence in the virus-like assassins. This is the way otherwise weak groups dominate and sometimes invade entities hundreds of times their size - an invasion does not need to be physical, it can exist in metaphysical "geography." The appearance of power, not to mention, the degree and eagerness for the targeted to give in, and not to kill back, enliven the invaders.

However, to the meek, feeble, scared, instable, weak, and confused, unflinching resolve in an enemy to the point of the justification and inclusion of all types of murder, is skewed in the mind of the weak as confident nobility. If somehow a person who seems rational is able to justify murder, then perhaps the consciousness' immediate rejection to this logic is actually wrong. The confused target then represses his feelings of the disorientation that would otherwise lead to intellegible moral objection, and he leans on the attacking force for power, sustenance, and confidence, and in this he becomes one of them. In other words, he is dominated and taken over, like a puppet.

This is the general effect of this type of terrorism on the "normal" Gentile. However, the effect on the Jew, precisely the effect which Shabbtai Tzvi sought to counterbalance and neuter, is different, especially a Jew with a spiritual inclination.

Take Yosef Cohen, for example. Cohen was a secular Jew who became Orthodox, such as myself, in his early twenties. As he recalls, he was speaking Online with a Muslim in a chatroom one day, and the discussions led to more discussions. After presenting the Muslim with all types of questions, all of which he says were answered, and eventually reading the Qur'an, Cohen decided that Islam was the truth, became a Muslim, and changed his name to "Yussuf Khattab." He has since changed his entire identity into a Jew- and Israel-hating Muslim, unflinchingly explaining that suicide bombings against Jews on busses is just. He alludes to it only shortly in a video on Youtube, but family and personal instability were factors in Cohen's life growing up, sad realities that can destroy a person's inner-sense of self.

But personal life isn't the only factor here. Becoming an Orthodox Jew is a process that is as powerful as a loaded gun and it must be handled carefully and with wisdom. Being a Jew means rejecting the illusions of this world and the attempt to replace it with a sometimes radically different notion. It is a type of thing that can cause a slightly insecure person to take it to the wrong proportions. However, Judaism's existing in an un-redeemed state, i.e., the lack of Temple, right to Jerusalem, inability to complete all the Mitzvot, having to convince the nations that Israel is ours, etc..., are all things that seem to be fulfilled in Islam. Therefore, a very interesting phenomenon with Islam for a particularly lost yet spiritual Jew (and the Cohanim, the descendants of the priests who served in the Temple, of which Yosef Cohen is one, are known for spiritual prowess), is that they identify the spiritual and religious absolutes that are currently lacking in Judaism in Islam. This is exactly what Shabbtai Tzvi, had he succeeded might have been the Messiah, was trying to prevent with Islam, and Yosef Cohen is exactly one of the types of my fellow Jews whom he was trying to save.

A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism -

Claimer: I just know the anti-Zionists will love this one, so here's some fire for the fodder or some food for thought.

This is an excerpt from the book holding the aforementioned title, written by Yakov M. Rabkin.

"The pious Jews who publicly criticize Zionism believe that they are obliged to do so for two imperious reasons spelled out in Jewish tradition. The first of these is to prevent desecration of the name of G-d. And since the State of Israel often claims to be acting on behalf of all the world's Jews, and even in the name of Judaism, these Jews feel they must explain to the public, primarly to non-Jews, the falsehood of this pretension. The second commandment is to preserve human life. By exposing the Judaic rejection of Zionism, they hope to protect Jews from the outrage they believe the State of Israel has generated among the nations of the world. They work to prevent turning the world's Jews into hostages of Israeli policies and their consequences. They insist that the State of Israel be known as the 'Zionist State' and not the 'Jewish State.'"

A bit about the nature of my commentary, it is primarily about the content of this excerpt (Judaic anti-Zionism) and not about the author. Preventing the desecration of G-d's Name and preserving human life are absolutely two Torah commandments for which a Jew needs to strive, but that is not my kasha (dispute) with the Orthodox Jews who oppose Zionism in the aforementioned manners. Rather, I would say that if they feel the need to reject Zionism in order to prevent a desecration of G-d's Name, then rather than by expressing an absolute rejection to the ideal of Zionism, they can attempt to change the course of politics within the country of Israel. They would not be Orthodox lone rangers in doing this, there are plenty of Torah-following Orthodox Jews whom believe in Zionism. Their quip with it is similar to that of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews but they don't come to the unnatural conclusion that Israel should cease to exist due to its imperfections. I would argue that their method of Torah Zionists is equally sound, or more, than the Torah anti-Zionist way of going about things. Further, perhaps anti-Zionist Torah Jews should realize that their viewpoints and actions are also a desecration of G-d's Name to the very Gentile world they seek to influence. The reason for this is that those Gentiles whom have taken it upon themselves to be the enemies of Israel love nothing more than a Jew who confirms their every sick and twisted belief about the Jews' non-right to live and be in Israel.

Looking at it on a Biblical level, since the anti-Zionist Torah Jews see themselves as upholding the Jewish tradition, can we imagine the Prophets and Forefathers and mothers of the Torah rejecting the need and obligation of Jews to return to the Land of Israel? I can understand the resistance of these Orthodox Jews, but I would also understand if they did everything in their power to question Israeli policies rather than questioning its existence. If they want to be harbingers of Torah for the Jews, they need to suggest the right things for the State of Israel, not its destruction, which is what the Palestinians do. Can we imagine the Prophets giving a rat's foot about what Assyria, Babylon, Rome, or Egypt had to say about the Jews' return to Israel? Why should a Jew care at all about what the nations of the world have to say about our return to our Land?

Another excerpt (the following paragraph):

"This attempt to dissociate the destiny of the Jewish people from the fate of the State of Israel belongs to a much broader set of issues that extends well beyond the limit of Jewish history. Defining identity as distinct from state institutions is a constant concern of millions of human beings. The Jews have demonstrated that a people can preserve its identity over the course of more than two millennia without a state of its own and in conditions often threatening its very physical survival. Has the emergence of Zionism and the State of Israel so transformed the Jewish people as to bring its unique history to an end? Could it be that Israel, in the light of Jewish tradition, is not at all Jewish?"

The glorification and romantification of two thousand years of galus (exile) is hardly an optimistic and beneficial argument. The culture created in the Jewish mind resulting from that two thousand year period of exile as a minority in other countries has forced Jews to bend over backwards just to survive. In effect, the Jewish culture created through this forging process was to learn to be flexible and outrageously disciplined and incredibly durable, but to claim that this is the essence of the Jews' "unique history" is not proper. It would be like saying that a person whom has learned to fight with one hand tied behind his back, in the event he was able to untie his second hand, should continue to fight with one hand because he developed a "unique" fighting style. I am an optimist, but a fighting style with one hand is not a style, it's an adaptation to a disability and it's nothing about which to boast.

How can I go about painting a picture of what it was like before this exile, how it should be now, and how it will be after Redemption? I am of the school of thought that one can only understand something in light of something which he already understands (or is able to see), and so what modern-day example can I give to best illustrate the Jewish Torah ideal? Islam. If we want to get some semblance of what the pre- and post-Redemption days will be like, when we have the Temple, we can look at Islam. Muslims have complete and unrestricted control of their holiest site, the Qaba in Mecca (which is aided by its relative geographical isolation in the southwestern tip of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula). The Qaba more or less acts as would our Temple in the sense that it would be the focal point of our religious devotion and our connection to G-d. I am not sure that a caliphate rests in Mecca from where all Muslim jurisprudence is decided, which is what would occur in the Temple in Jerusalem with the re-establishment of the Sanhedrin. The analogy is clearly imperfect but the fact remains that Islam has acheived (through power and political coercion) what Judaism (and the entire world) will be rewarded through the achievement of Mitzvah's and G-d's Mercy. *I will soon write a blog about Muslim messianism and its relationship to Jewish Redemption.

The survival with which G-d has blessed us in the past two thousand years is permeated with our success in surviving with less than half of our spiritual resources available to us. We didn't have the Temple, we didn't have Israel, and we didn't have the full Presence of the Shekhina. Surviving in such circumstances is definitely a source of pride but to seek to recreate those circumstances just because we have become cozily accustomed to them is ridiculous, from the heart of the Torah perspective! Why should suffering be the hallmark of our existence?! Why should flourishing as the alternative to misery be the pillar of Judaism?! Do the Gentiles behave and think in this manner? Do the Christians who support Israel think like us? Do our Muslim "neighbors" and "cousins" behave like us? Why are we the only ones that act this way?! What is our problem?! That is something that we need to utterly reject.

It’s a bit humorous that Rabkin sides with Jewish Orthodoxy when it comes to criticism of the State of Israel but would probably reject Orthodoxy’s views on how he should live his life in a secular Jewish state. Does he realize that the Orthodox Jews whom criticize the Jewish state (maybe even its existence) also criticize the secular Jew’s decision not to follow Torah Law? Where does he come off agreeing with them when they disapprove of the way he lives his life? Their reason for criticizing Zionism is a world apart from his reason for criticizing it; religious and secular criticism of Zionism are different creatures.

Religious opposition to Zionism has its degrees of truth, for Zionism in and of itself, speaks in the name of Judaism when it is not synonymous with Judaism. However, complete religious rejection of Zionism based on our pre-Messianic state does not necessarily have to exist because our knowledge of how redemption will unfold is unknown to every single Jew. There is nobody that can give a precise answer, despite the hints and clues that our Torah gives us, as to how Redemption will play out. It is a Torah fact that everything that occurs is a part of G-d’s plan; if anti-Zionist religious Jews can believe that the Holocaust was an act of G-d, then why can’t they believe that the Zionism that led to the creation of the State of Israel also is an act of G-d? Surely the fruits of the State of Israel are both better and have higher potential for goodness and truth than did the Holocaust, i.e., which nearly brought about our utter destruction.

Zionism does not threaten traditional Jewish views, such as the Coming of the Messiah, with destruction, because we cannot claim a monopoly over the knowledge of how Redemption will occur. If we could, then the Torah would have told us straight out what needs to occur and how precisely, but it does not. Therefore, the belief that the State of Israel is an obstruction to Redemption and a destroyer of Judaism borders on dogmatic belief. Negating religious anti-Zionism is not sufficient in making an argument. Rather, it very well could be that in some way unpredictable to the mind of man, that Zionism, i.e., the State of Israel, will bring about Messianic Redemption. For one, Zionism and love of Israel brought me closer to observance of the Torah to the point where I became an observant Jew and continues to do so. It is almost masochistic to insist on the self-denying monasticism from our holy sites and Land. Somewhere near the extreme of total and utter faith in G-d, causing one to reject all worldly steps towards Israel, is a G-dless extreme seemingly lacking in all emuna (trust in G-d). There is a tendency for Zionism to have an effect on unobservant Jews potentially bringing them back to Judaism. Until the anti-Zionist Orthodox find a better way to bring far-off Jews back to the Torah, they either need to shut their mouths or get with the program. And G-d forbid, the last thing they should do, the aveira (sin) of aveirot, to kiss the grotesque and bloody cheek of Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, as did the Chief Rabbi of Neturei Karta just this week. One of my rabbi's at my yeshiva called him a "rasha," which means "a completely evil man." This cordial treatment of the man who wants to kill the Jews was a chilul Hashem (desanctification of G-d's Name) and I question that man's sanity.

Back to the topic, since we do not know how Redemption will occur, we cannot have many grievances against what religious and spiritual opportunities Zionism and being able to live in the State of Israel opens up for religious Jews; there are clear potentials for spirituality and religiosity in Israel that are not available in other countries. For example, kashrut is difficult to find in many places, to the point where observant Jews learn how to function as if with one hand tied behind their back. Further, their knowledge of being the minority among Gentiles creates a degree of isolation, a sort of “hiding.” For a Jew living among Gentiles, life is basically lived out under a glass ceiling. In Israel, the potential for spirituality is higher and more fluent than it is in the lands of galut, and even though the culture of the State of Israel needs serious improvements, a religious Jew is able to reach newer heights and levels in Israel that he was unable to in other places, also by the mere fact of his being in Israel and around other Jews, and in such proximity to his holiest sites, even if the Arabs prevent him from having freedom of movement. It is as if some Orthodox Jews, those whom oppose Zionism, prefer a life of surviving among destruction than actually turning a new leaf and embracing what could potentially be a very positive religious and spiritual benefit for the Jewish People, in some unpredictable way bringing out the Coming of the Messiah and ultimate Redemption. Their attitudes are proof that even religious people, as noble, respectable, loving of Torah, and pious they are, and who are making the world a better place by attempting to clear it of secularism, can still be victim to an almost 2000 year-old mentality that a patient, enduring, and ghetto-fashioned disciplinary style unmoved by G-d-given initiative will in and of itself, and only it, bring about Messianic Redemption.

Oops; I'm an Orthodox Jew (How I Became Observant) -

I eventually realized that the views that I held could no longer be considered secular. The change was not so dramatic that I could say it occurred overnight, but rather was a growing set of changes that were occurring in the way I thought about things. At a certain point in time, and it’s possible that it could have occurred earlier or later, they culminated into a coherent set of ideas that were not accurately representative of what you would normally call a secular person. At the point in time of that culmination I looked at myself, and although I saw the same person that I had always been, I had realized a new facet to my being, that I was not a secular Jew and could not associate with that identity. That was more or less the realization that I was an Orthodox Jew and that the Orthodox world was the world in which I belonged. It was as if the sum of my parts came together and I understood a more complete picture of whom I actually was. This was in no way a replacement of who I was but rather a certain coming to fruition of my personality and my thoughts; you could definitely consider it a type of maturation. It was a rounding off of the edges, a placing together of disparate pieces of my being into a more coherent picture.

Previous to this, the external manifestation I was going through was expressed as a level of discomfort with certain things around me and often times came with a feeling of not belonging. The discomfort generally applied to social situations, and in this I open up my experience to the criticism of a person who wants to pin my change on social awkwardness. However, it would be more accurate to say that I was frustrated with the nature of the interaction of many of my friends and peers, behaviours that I considered superficial, negative, and to a degree, resembling a power struggle between those very friends. This was not something I felt I wanted to or could be a part of, and so I was always a bit on the outskirts of my relationship with those people.

There are reasons other than philosophical retaliation, if you want to call it that, for my feeling separated from my friends to the degree that I did; the way they thought and behaved was not the only factor. It was clear that my Jewish identity was a part of me, and although it was an obscured identity that often confused me more than it shed light, it was as if it was infused onto my bones and into my blood, and I could not shed it. My ability to realize that I was different in this sense from my friends, all of whom came from Christian families, played a serious role in putting certain obstacles between them and me. The culture in which my parents raised me, although generally not observant, had fostered a deep awareness of our Jewishness. It was only when I was only able to figure out how that piece of myself fit into the whole that I was able to feel comfortable with it and to love it. Until then my Jewishness was a bittersweet concoction of identity that both blessed me and cursed me. In retrospect I can understand how Jews have chosen to assimilate, Jews who were in much more miserable situations than was I (such as those of the Inquisition). I should thank G-d every day that I chose to assimilate in rather than out. My friends were not to blame for my feeling of alienation from them, it was a symptom of my inability to recover from my Jewishness and for the most part they tried to be as accommodating as possible.

During this time, usually on my own, I would read whatever Jewish material I could get my hands on, completely unaware at that point of the existence of differing paradigms of observance of the Torah. I build up a reserve of stories and partially developed understandings of what Judaism was, but for the most part I kept those away from my friends, and even my family. My interest was sparked from these things and I began to be a bit pushy with my family as to some of the Jewish traditions, such as lighting candles on Chanukah in a specific way, etc… For a few years we lit candles on Friday night, and since my knowledge of Jewish ritual didn’t far exceed that, I sought for my family to do whatever we did in the perfect way. During Passover, for example, I insisted that we read the entire Hagadah from front to back and was annoyed when we read through it quickly, as if just to get to the meal. I even recall expressing my anger to my aunt about how many Jews (in America) were almost totally unmotivated to really feel Judaism.

Another relevant factor was my being born in Israel and my family’s deep attachment to our family “back home,” my mom’s side. Our several trips to Israel over the summers provided me with several positive experiences, many of them occurring on the cusps between adolescence and maturity. Among that, the trips also did something deeper, they put me in touch with a sense of who or what I might have been had we not moved to America when I was six years old. My formative years in America were relatively tough; I developed a dual or hybrid identity forcing me to grapple with the question of who I was and Israel was often the potential key to that answer.

As I began college and slowly but surely saw less and less of my high school friends, I began to meet Jews. My Jewish education ended in sixth grade and during the last eight or so years, my only friends were Gentiles. Now that I was suddenly meeting other Jews, whom also loved Israel like I did, I felt that I could really connect with them. Those people are still my friends to this day. Eventually I joined a pro-active Israel action group on campus that two of them began; finally an outlet for my love of Israel and Judaism. As I became aware of the liberal hatred of the State of Israel on campus, I began to question my previously unquestioned politically liberal views, which to me were inseparable from idealism. Painfully, and after some period of time, I realized that I had to give up some, or many, of my liberal preconceptions on the nature of the universe, scrapping the notion that goodness was to be automatically equated with liberalness. Goodness, it seemed, was not fully formed simply in the liberal view of the world, and slowly, slowly I began to form more conservative views, at least with regards to Israel. My growingly conservative views on Israel, which were identified by not being afraid to state politically incorrect truths regarding the hatred towards Israel. I soon realized, after trying to see it in many ways, that this hatred was held together by one thing above all, that Israel was full of Jews.

Rather than shying away from standing up for our rights as Jews in Israel, as many Jews did, I reasoned that we should not feel guilty about stating what was ours. It was neither necessary nor acceptable to stand up for everybody else’s rights except our own; I did not see it as a violation of liberal thought, but rather as an accurate embodiment of it, to stand up for our own rights. Every year Jews got together on the campus mall to recollect the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust by reading their names from a list; why could we not speak out for the Jews dying today, the living Jews, with the same vigour with which we spoke for those who have already perished? I began to fear that had the Jews who did not speak out for their living brothers lived in the time of the Intifada, similarly they would have not spoken out for their brothers in the camps either. I had already begun to seriously question the resolve of many liberal-leaning Jews to actually bettering their situation. I feared that they were stuck in some continuously repeating time portal of guilt and paranoia that caused them to endlessly read the names of Jews murdered in the past. If their commitment to ending injustice towards Jews was so strong, then there were plenty of Jews dying today for whom they could speak, but more often they violated their “Never Again” ethos by remaining silent.

A while later, “by an accident of the universe,” I was sent on a Birthright trip by which I was initially rejected. Michelle Blumberg, executive director of the Hillel at the University of Arizona, put in a call to the Los Angeles-Israeli Consulate explaining to them that I had never been on an organized trip to Israel. After a moment of her being put on hold, they confirmed that I was accepted to the trip. A week and a half later I was on a plane to Israel, and later, in Jerusalem, standing at the Kotel (Western Wall), the culmination written about in the first paragraph occurred. I knew that I believed in G-d, which meant that G-d had designed a way to communicate with humanity, which had to be the Torah, and that Israel was of utmost importance to Judaism, and at that point in time I realized that I was an Orthodox Jew.

Response to Muslim Gentleman on Youtube -

I found a ten-or-so minute clip on Youtube of a Muslim gentleman speaking about the comparisons between Islam and Judaism. This gentleman seems very cool-headed, educated, intelligent, compassionate, insightful, and I venture to say well-meaning, but this was a slight contradiction on his part. Nevertheless, it was one of the most collected and relaxed messages I've seen yet comparing Islam and Judaism, and you can find it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-IMXbcNjc#902j7fvqGzU

I couldn't help responding because many of the facts were skewed or only touched on a part of the bigger picture relating to the topic he was talking about. For example, he mentions that the way Jews and Muslims slaughter animals is exactly the same, done in the Name of G-d. Kosher slaughter requires all of the blood of the animal to be drained and a number of other requirements have to be filled, which is why a trained Jewish supervisor (mashgiach) has to be present (or visit the place continuously). The aforementioned process is considered "in the Name of G-d" in Judaism, and I think, from what I've heard, that slaughtering the animal "in the Name of G-d" in Islam simply means reciting a blessing. This means that Halal and Kosher meat are not synonymous; Jews cannot eat Halal meat but Muslims may eat Kosher food (according to him and most Muslims I know). To add, the Torah’s dietary code restricts about thirty animals, such as camel, which Islam allows. It would not be enough for Judaism and Islam to be similar; if Islam is to replace Judaism it must be identical to it, yet if it was identical then Muslims should be keeping Judaism and not vice-versa!

Near the beginning of the film he said something that rung very true, that Muslims are fulfilling the mandate for Gentiles as set down by Judaism. I would be interested to know if, from a Halakhic perspective, Islam is a fulfillment of the Noachide Laws, and it's pretty cool that he even knew that Judaism has requirements for Gentiles. However, a bit later in the video he contradicted himself by saying that, since Judaism and Islam are so similar, Islam is the fulfillment of Judaism. This doesn't make too much sense, first, but second, if Islam is the fulfillment for Gentiles, then it would not make sense that Jews fulfill their duty by following the rules that the Torah prescribes for Gentiles because gives them their own requirements.

The gentleman makes mention of the similarity between the Name of G-d in Hebrew and Arabic, but the Name that he used is one that I have not heard being used for G-d. I don't know, it might be a variation of “Elokim.”

Also, it was very subtle but he wouldn't say the word "Jew." From what I've learned from speaking to Muslims, "Judaism" is not a real religion because it is derived from the word "Jew," which is derived from "Judah," which is the English for "Yehuda." Therefore, since the name of our religion is derived from a tribe of Israel, the Muslim tradition explains that "Judaism" is the left-over remnant of the practice of the tribe of Judah, the "Yehudim," which literally means "Judites," those from Judah. If this were true, then "Judaism" would not really be a religion. However, the Muslim tradition uses the fact of the name of Judaism to say that the real religion of Judaism has disappeared and that "Jews" don't keep it today. Nothing could be more false because "Judaism" is just a word (that the Jews did not choose) and we still keep the Torah. Back when I first started this blog I wrote a post about the development of the word "Judah" and you can read it there. Just to give a summary of that here, the Israelites took on the name of "Judah" because it was the only tribe to remain intact after the Babylonian and Assyrian exile, and while many of the Israelites became "swallowed" up in other lands, those who were not clung to the name "Judah." The reason for this was to retain their religious identity, and so "Torah" and "Judaism" are synonymous. I'm a Levi (from the tribe of Levi) but I am a Jew.

* A really fascinating video about this topic is called "Quest for the Lost Tribes" and A&E directed it. I recommend this film like crazy!

Here is where I learned something. In Arabic, the word "Aqeedah" is the word describing the central doctrinal belief of Islam, referring to the belief that Abraham went to sacrifice Ishmael in Mecca on the future site of the Q'aba, and not Isaac. In Hebrew, “Akeidah” means “binding” referring to the binding of Isaac on the altar to be sacrificed. Islam believes the Torah's account of this to be an alteration of the original text (some "proto-Torah?") in which Ishmael was sacrificed (I have yet to see any museum come forth with fragments of this original text, or the Arabs themselves, but I would love to see it). “Akeidah” in Hebrew is not a word for the central doctrine of Judaism but it's rational to see how such a word is used to define the central beliefs of Islam when we take into account what Islam believes.

He also said that Hebrew needed Arabic to reconstruct itself by looking into Arabic texts to find the meanings of Hebrew words. The main point he used to illustrate this is that Hebrew scholars didn't know the meaning of the word "echad," a word repeated in one of Judaism's central daily prayers. It is basic knowledge in the first monotheistic religion that "echad" means "one" both in quantity and quality, two descriptions of G-d's essential character. I don't know where he got that particular piece of information but it's false. On the other hand, the word “selah” is said to be a word about which the Jewish tradition is confused, but Arabic does not provide Judaism with a meaning for it.

Considering the previous example of Islam's usage of the word "Akeidah," which is Hebrew, it would make more sense to say that the opposite is true, that Arabic made sense of certain words through Hebrew. In cases when words from the Hebrew language were difficult to decipher, Jewish Sages have traditionally looked into the Oral Law, which in Islam’s terms could be understood as the "Jewish Hadith," although not per se coming from the mouth of Moses (Hadith are said to be quoted from Muhammad). If Hebrew needed Arabic, it would mean that by using the Arabic understanding of words, which is inseparable from Muslim theology, Judaism became infused with a Muslim theology. The clear point of his argument here is to further correlate Islam and Judaism by saying that Judaism itself is infused with Islam, i.e., more reason for anybody who believes in the "Old Testament" to convert to Islam. The Oral Law is as old as the Law given to Moses on Mt. Sinai – Islam came about in the 6th Century of the Common Era.

The gentleman uses the term “Isaacite Jews" versus all other Jews as if only the Jews whom descended from Isaac are valid. This is a very clever term that I haven't heard until now. However, it's passive propaganda, especially since all Muslims are considered valid (such as converts, etc...) even though only a handful of Muslims are actually descendants of Ishmael. The 23% (and growing) percentage of the world that is Muslim could not have only come from Ishmael's descendants, and Muslims are of all different "races," like Jews. If only the "Isaacite" Jews are valid then only the "Ishmaelite" Muslims are valid, otherwise all converts to either religion count or none of them do.

To sum up, as someone that suggested who commented on my comment, the video started off in a way that seemed like he was trying to bridge Judaism and Islam, but a while in it becomes clear that he's using the similarities (and creating others) to give a reason to become Muslim. The conclusion has to be that it would not be enough for Judaism and Islam to be similar; if Islam is to replace Judaism it must be identical to it. But if they were identical, then Muslims might as well become Jews! No?

Would love to hear some comments, especially if the gentleman who made the film reads this.

Power in Purity (Poem) -

I loved life but I feared impurity

And impurity was interwoven in life

Like pebbles in a clean rock

And so I feared life and loved purity

I separated the two and then life became pure

And rendered lovable

When in youth

Such a thing can be taken as backwardness

But when age comes

Such a thing is exposed as

The strength around which people gather

I identified by the things I was not

Status was increased by experience

Power was gained by having done

Height was reached by having said it

My resistance caused my rockiness

And I became like a rock

Trying to mold myself after my Rock

Who is pure and without pebbles

Skin Suit! -

Skin suit, how ugly you are when you your hub is material
Everything you do then is immaterial
Live high, skin suit, and heightened you will be
Live free, skin suit, and freed you will be
But stick your face in the ground, skin suit
Back to your ashes will you flee
Live low, skin suit, and lowered will you be
Six feet, skin suit, waits for you and me

Skin suit, where do you hide your beauty?
Muscle blanket, what life pulsates inside you?
Why visit graves, oh wise skin suit, when the only skin there is above ground?
Look in the mirror, skin suit, where are you in there?
Your reputation cannot really be your representation
Like you breathe in air, your soul is there
Like you exhale words, only there are they heard
As long as you can walk, flesh thing, walk in the ways of G-d
Flirtation and flattering are worth like flatulation
Flat-like-the-world-folks fall off the edge fast
Flat pancakes flap and fall down back into pans
Simmering in grease their potential does cease?
Pores blocked no air release
Bigger please!
Let your only limitation be imitation
Acoustic wine
Dine on white curtains and say "He's mine"
Then, dirt body, your skin will shine
Turn yourself just right like the jewel that you are
Catch the light just right and reflect it into the night
Make sparks off your skin and let yourself make eyes' sight bright
At this and that site

First Wedding Catering -

I just came back from catering my first wedding. This morning my friend and chavruta (person I study Gemara with) asked me if I wanted to cater a wedding tonight here in Jerusalem. We would get paid 100 shekel (20 bucks) and be able to take food with us, and both were ingredients in my choosing "yes." We worked from 7PM to 12AM catering the wedding and at the end of the night we took a hefty chunk of food with us and three bottles of drinks. We got paid 150 shekel each instead of 100, which comes to 30 shekel (6 bucks) an hour; not bad and definitely good by Israeli standards, which has a lower minimum wage than does America (about 15-20 shekel, which is 3-4 dollars an hour). I also have a job on Friday (thank G-d) cleaning the house of a rabbi and his before Shabbat, and I get 35 shekel (7 dollars an hour), which is definitely good, and I work for a few hours. Last week I worked 4 hours, which is 120 shekel (or 24 dollars). All of these things are blessings and soon I'm going to check into seeing how to get into the writing world (newspapers, etc...) through an alum from my yeshiva who has a few published works. G-d is good and He's really helping me out, baruch Shemo!

Just thought I'd share that, as it says, "You are known, Hashem, to all Your creations, and of Your kind deeds I will speak."

The International Solidarity Movement - ISM -

A Jew named Adam Shapiro began the International Solidarity Movement, a Jew who is a self-proclaimed atheist and Communist. The ISM is a group that disrespects Israel’s national sovereignty that carries out raid-type missions that compromise Israeli security by putting themselves in the middle of Israeli forces and terrorist operatives. They also risk their own lives and one of them died, Rachel Corrie, when she stood in front of a tractor that ran her over. Her parents went to Israel to show solidarity and they got kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists.

Many countries would have a conniption fit had the ISM set foot in their land, but Israel sits back and allows this kind of thing. The ISM is composed of mentally impoverished and emotionally instable immoral punk rockers that don’t know the first thing about Middle Eastern, Jewish, or Muslim history.

The actions of those Jewish extremists mentioned cannot be seen in a vacuum of the types of assaults, both internal and external, that Israel’s enemies enact on it. It’s enough to have those kinds of enemies with which to contend, but now an idiotic third party of manic depressive college students who divide all of the world’s conflicts into race and class lines but yet still get into college because they checked off the “White” box on their FAFSA forms?! Haha.

I had the luxury of meeting a Mexican guy who wore a keffiyah around his neck at my university. He wildly recalled with a glare in his eyes that he encouraged a young Palestinian boy to throw Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers. When I told him that throwing Molotov cocktails at people sets them on fire and it is very hard to put out, he said that he was actually anti-violence.

If the Palestinians knew that the ISM loathes G-d perhaps they would rethink their support.

My bowels make better movements than them. Solidarity, perhaps with evil.

A Dream -

When we see a spider we say "eek" because it is black, but when a spider sees a dove it says "eek" because it is white.

He looks over the horizon and tries to determine the size of it's eye.

These are the two statements that I had in a dream on Shabbat, and they appeared as "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoons.

I guess I also wanted to jot down some things about the last week in Israel. A few days ago on Thursday one of the G'dolei Ha-dor, the great Rabbi's of this generation, passed away. My yeshiva had the merit to go to his levaya, the process of carrying the body to the cemetery (wrapped in sheets) and a mitzvah from the Torah. When we first got there, we were outside of a huge Orthodox soup kitchen, apparently somehow associated with the Rav (z"l), of which had a high red-brick wall surrounding it, and it was across from a synagogue with a big sun-dial. Children and young bachurim were sitting on top of the wall and then the voice of a man (whom we could not see) giving a speech in Yiddish (which I don't understand). After that somebody started saying Kaddish and then all of us said it for the Rav. The man had a yearning in his voice and at a few points it reached a tone of near-crying, which lasted shortly. At that point in time we began walking (or inching) through the street where a police woman was directing traffic (us).

There were about 10,000 people in the streets of Jerusalem, and have you ever seen 10,000 people crossing a street? In America they stop traffic with cars for a funeral, here it was people. The really amazing part of it was that we were performing the mitzvah of escorting our dead to where his body would be buried, and not only that, he and his writings affected the Jews of this generation in ways that would be difficult to trace. Think about it like the disciples carrying the body of his teacher to its grave. I got the zchut of getting near the body as they were walking briskly to grab a hold of the sheet to carry it, but instead I just put my hand on it. A guy there told me to tuck in my tzitziyot (because the dead cannot do mitzvahs), which is what I did davening at the grave site of the Rambam, his father, and other Tanna'im and Ammora'im. I and a guy from the yeshiva named "Akiva" managed to get all the way to the cemetery as the wrapped body was lowered in the ground and we each put a rock on the heap of dirt. If any of you have ever been in a concert, the amount of people and the congestion was similar, some ten thousand people performed a huge mitzvah that day.

This Shabbat was also an amazing one (as they all are for their unique reasons). We davined at a local shul, lovingly known as "The Bubble" due to its bubble-type shape, down the street from the yeshiva. Some other names for it range "The Igloo" and "The Dome," and it seats some one hundred people and has an upstairs (for the women), downstairs (for the men), and upstairs (also for the women). Behind the ark is a huge black metal menorah that spans some thirty feet from one side to the other and with bulbs in place of candles. It was an excellent start for an excellent Shabbat.

After davining Mincha, Kabbalat Shabbat, and Ma'ariv (Aravit, here), a German bachur named "Michael" and I were scheduled to have the Shabbos meal at Rav Axlebaum's and his family's house. Mike thought he knew where the house was located on "Rechov Chalutz," (Chalutz Street), but after about forty minutes of walking back and forth down that street, which was an adventure in itself, we couldn't find the house so we headed back to the yeshiva. It was empty, and we got together some food that we had (most was Mike's), some pastrami, a challah, chummus, orange juice, wine, and chocolate spread, some benchers, and we had our own Shabbos meal there in the Bet Midrash. It was fine and good; we said "Kiddush," said "Ha-motzi," ate, and sang a few songs. As we were finishing some of the other bachurim got back and we chit-chatted with them and sang some more songs and eventually called it a night.

The next morning we davined Shacharit at the Bubble and then went to Rav Schuster's house for lunch (one of the Roshei Yeshiva), which was great because his four kids are cool, and the food was great too, and the walk, and the view from the building just overlooking the hill standing in front of Har Nof to the northeast. The building is built partially underground and partially overground because Jerusalem is literally a city built on a hill. For pedestrians, there are actually sets of stairs connecting streets to other steets and so walking up and down stairs is a normal part of walking in Jerusalem, a slight deviation from the normal grid set-up. The front entrance to the building puts you at the 7th floor while floors 1-6 are downstairs and the rest are higher. The building boasts the interesting architecture of having a roof downstairs from the main entrance, and in case you thought it was a paradigm of existence for roofs to be located downstairs from anything, you look down over the balcony from the seventh floor and see a roof, the roof for the second and third floors. Whoever said that G-d's City needs to conform to the normal laws of nature or architecture or things like that?

This Shabbat was a bit surreal and I can't really explain it, partially because it's new for me, partially because its unique style, partially because being in Israel sparks certain ancient memories (childhood and earlier, probably), and partially because Shabbat is just holy. The sights and sounds here are interesting to say the least, and looking out the window from the Shabbat table at Rabbi Schuster's house at the buildings and the view was just a surreal experience that made you stare and consider things; I can't really explain it but recommend it. The way the trees grow, the off-white seemingly hand-cut stones and the way the dirt collects between them, the way the city is built on a series of hills, the style of the houses not similar to houses in Tucson but some of them striking certain similarities, and the Jewish people walking around, most of them observing Shabbat, is all a part of the experience. Again, I recommend it, especially if you're a Jew.

Just a bit ago I was told that Rabbi Karlinsky's (one of the Roshei Yeshiva) died today and we're going to his funeral at 9:40 tonight, and right now it's around 8:30.

Peace, Yaniv...

Yahoo Aricle -

Here's an article I found on Yahoo and I just had to comment on parts of it.

Here goes...

JERUSALEM - Nearly 40 percent of West Bank settlements are built on private land seized from Palestinians, an Israeli watchdog group said Tuesday — challenging the government's long-standing assertion the communities were built only on unclaimed territory.

Citing leaked Israeli military documents, Peace Now unveiled a report it said showed settlements were built on Palestinian property seized by the army long after Israel's Supreme Court outlawed the practice in 1979.

"We are talking about an institutional land grab," Dror Etkes, a settlement expert with the group, told reporters in Jerusalem.

In the Gaza StripSEARCH, meanwhile, Israeli troops killed a top Hamas commander in an operation against Palestinian rocket squads. Two other Palestinians, including an elderly woman, also were killed, hospital officials said.

In apparent Palestinian infighting, a former FatahARCH
Cabinet minister, Abdel Aziz Shahin, 62, was shot and wounded in Gaza City after criticizing the ruling Islamic Hamas on a radio show, hospital officials said.

Peace Now said its information was leaked from the Civil Administration, the Israeli military department responsible for civil affairs in the West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war. It said at the government's request, the Supreme Court delayed a scheduled May hearing on Peace Now's petition to have the data released under freedom of information laws.

In its 174-page report, Peace Now said the Civil Administration database showed 38.8 percent of the area currently occupied by Israeli settlements, settlement outposts and industrial zones in the West Bank was privately owned Palestinian land, illegally expropriated by Israeli authorities.

Most notable was the city of Maaleh Adumim outside Jerusalem — with a population of 30,000, the West Bank's biggest settlement — where Peace Now said 86.4 percent of the real estate was in fact Palestinian-owned.

Israel has agreed to freeze settlement construction under an internationally backed peace plan, but says the fate of the settlements should be left to future peace negotiations.

The court ruling of 1979 ordered the Defense Ministry to stop seizing private Palestinian land for military use and turning it over for settlement construction. Peace Now said the practice continued, and 31.3 percent of the land built into settlements since the ruling is owned by Palestinians.

Civil Administration spokesman Shlomo Dror said he had not had an opportunity to study the report and could not comment on the figures.

"I can say that in general we have a clear directive not to build on privately owned Palestinian land," he said. He added that West Bank property records, passed down through successive Ottoman, British and Jordanian rulers, were incomplete and that some people listed as holding property titles had died and their heirs were unknown.

"I'm not sure that all the land Peace Now says is Palestinian, is Palestinian," he said.

Bentsi Lieberman, head of the settlers' council, insisted the settlements were built on public land. Speaking on Channel 2 TV, he said much of the land is claimed falsely by Palestinians.

Nearly 244,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank. In the summer of 2005, Israel evacuated all 8,500 settlers from the Gaza Strip, along with its military bases.

Since then, Palestinian militants in Gaza have been pounding southern Israel with homemade rockets. A woman in the town of Sderot, a frequent target, was killed in a volley last week.

Palestinian militants fired at least three rockets into Israel on Tuesday, one of which critically wounded a man in Sderot as the top U.N. human rights official toured another part of the town.

In Tuesday's raid, ground troops, backed by helicopters and tanks, surrounded the Gaza City home of Ayman Hassanin, 26, a local Hamas leader, witnesses said.

Gunmen streamed to the area as troops called on loudspeakers for Hassanin and his brother, Ibrahim, to surrender, according to the militants' mother, who identified herself only as Umm Mahmoud. A gunbattle erupted, and Ayman Hassanin was killed.

A 70-year-old woman also was killed in the battle, and a 20-year-old man was killed elsewhere, Palestinian medical officials said.

The army said troops fired at the house only after militants fired bullets and mortars at the soldiers.

Also Tuesday, two Italian Red Cross workers in Gaza were kidnapped by militants, the agency said, the latest in a series of abductions of foreigners in the territory. In the past, hostages have been released unharmed after a relatively short time, though two Fox journalists were held for two weeks.

Problem # 1 is with this statement, "Citing leaked Israeli military documents, Peace Now unveiled a report it said showed settlements were built on Palestinian property seized by the army long after Israel's Supreme Court outlawed the practice in 1979."

The Israeli Supreme Court might have outlawed the practice in 1979, but that is irrelevant because thirteen years earlier, in 1967, the three countries that this article failed to mention, those three which collaberated to destroy Israel in that war, lost the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights. Israel's critics now hysterically yell that Israel's seizure and annexation of those lands was illegal, but excuse for me mentioning that the attempt for Jordan, Egypt, and Syria to destroy Israel in an unilaterally accepted war is also illegal. Why would anybody attack the second illegal move and leave the first one unchallenged? Does anybody see a problem with that logic?

We must understand how this article is using the phrase "Palestinian property." The usage here is meant to refer to land that on which Palestinians lived before Israel became a state in 1948. That's all well and good and that land might have been land on which Palestinians lived, but in 1967 the Jordanians, Egyptians, and Syrians forfeited the right of the Palestinians to that land when they attacked Israel. Those who don't know much about modern Middle Eastern history have to know that the West Bank was considered Jordanian up until after the Six Day War. To add insult to the Palestinian's injury, they started this war without even once taking into account what would have happened to those Arabs had the attacker countries lost the war. When Israel won the Six Day War of 1967 the land on which the Palestinians lived was passed off into Israel's hands, and we would be fools to say that Israel's seizure of those lands was illegal because the war itself was illegal. It is absolutely ridiculous to say that Israel's winning the war was illegal, but if you consider for a moment, that is precisely what is being said when we hear "it was illegal for Israel to capture those lands." Doing something in a state of self defense is never illegal, just like it is never illegal to kill a person who has a gun to your head. The only reason that it became known as "Palestinan property" is because Israel's annexation of those areas of land were not absolute, the country divided the newly annexed area into three areas; areas where Palestinians had civil and local control, areas where Israel had civil control and Palestinians had local control, and areas where Israel had both civil and local control.

The question Peace Now's report begs is on which category of land were the settlements built. But a more philosophical question remains; isn't it Israel's fault for its own problems now for not taking full control of the entire West Bank in 1967 and annexing it as part of the country? By giving the Palestinians a measure of sovereignty in the area Israel made a huge mistake, but it's easy to judge these things in retrospect, which I am not doing. What I am doing is pointing out that the source of Peace Now's gripe with Israel is seeded deep in the grievous error that Israel made after winning the Six Day War, the attempt to give the Palestinians free reign rather than expelling them from those borders. That the most skilled military officers of the Israeli army did not realize in advance that providing the defeated Palestinian Arabs with this type of sovereignty within Israel's new borders (although many apparently did) is indicative of a national illusion shared by Israeli culture. That illusion is that peace was possible with the Arabs and it is very important to say that the Arabs did not share this same illusion, not then and still not now.

Yet another philosophical perspective renders the fact that Muslims see no difference between religion and politics, and to a degree I believe this to be a positive trait and wish to see the Jewish People recognize that this too is their destiny, but that is another topic. The Jews of Israel have detached from this ideological yearning that religion should influence (and rule) all aspects of their national political existence, but the neighboring Arabs, who haven't, view Israel in the way that they view their own national existence. Therefore, they must associate anti-Israelism with anti-Semitism because the right of the Jewish State to exist is based soley on Judaism, and the Arabs, who are Muslim, know this. The extent that Israel should be destroyed is equal to the extent which Israel is inextracable from Judaism. The extent to which a Jewish national state should not exist is equal to the extent which a Muslim national state should.

It's late so I'll add more criticism of this article later. Good night.

How Do We Know That There is an Oral Law?

Logically speaking, there has to be. In the Torah there is a commandment that mentions what is done with a habitually goring bull; it is put to death. The presence of this commandment in the Torah leads to a proof that G-d gave the Oral Law to Moses along with the Written Torah. The question that naturally comes from this commandment is, "What constitutes a habitually goring bull?" The importance of this question cannot be underplayed; if a society is a product of its laws, then a society needs to have good and coherent laws. If my bull continuously gores other bulls, it would be in the best interest of bull-owners as to what exactly constitutes a habitually goring bull. The inability to define this particular status of bull would lead the bull to continue damaging peoples' property and would create an element of strife and even hatred in the society. Therefore, peace rides upon the ability to define just what exactly a "habitually goring bull" is.

The Talmud explains that a bull which has gored three times constitutes a habitually goring bull. We know this because it is written in the physical Talmud, which the holy Sages of the Sanhedrin wrote down in a codified form during the destruction of the Second Temple during the Roman occupation. They considered that the events taking place after this destruction, namely dispersal, would also decompose the Jewish society and so they felt it an obligation to codify which had not been codified since its deliverance to Moses along with the Written Law. The Oral Law was meticulously written down as Jews now took to studying it on their terms with Rabbi's and most likely amongst themselves, and later as printing became a possible industry, it appeared in printed form in mass quantities. Now every Jew (and person) has access to the Talmud

There are some people whom seek to prove the invalidity of the Oral Law, or rather its supposedly corrupting rigorous approach to Law, in order to validate their own beliefs. It is these people, namely a certain "brand" of Christians (and most likely all of them), whom seek to show the universal role of Jesus in the Second Temple time by playing him against the assumedly dead routine of the Law and the corruption of which it is charged (there are also Muslims whom seek to show the universality of Muhammad in a similar fashion). Therefore, these Christians argue that the Oral Law was not Divinely authored, unlike the (Written) Torah, which they believe was, and therefore must logically conclude that the Sages invented it in the Second Temple time. Make no mistake, to be under "Divine influence" is not the same thing as receiving something from G-d, as did Moses, and therefore even if the Sages were inspired by (what they thought was) the Will of G-d, the Oral Law would be useless and even dangerous.

Fortunately reality saves the day. There is a problem with the view that the Sages invented the Oral Law upon its codification in the year 70 C.E.; how did the Jews of Moses' time understand the commandment to put to death a bull which had habitually gored? If we ask the question "What constitutes a habitually goring bull," then we can assume that the recipients of the Torah, the Jews whom G-d liberated from Egypt and were wandering in the desert, also had that question. Can it be possible that the question only became relevant in the 1st Century and therefore the Jewish Sages only codified the Oral Law in that time? Absolutely not! However, this is what we must conclude if we go by the view of the people whom state that the Sages invented the Oral Law. Rather, that the Talmud elucidates an answer, which is not found anywhere in the Written Torah, is a proof that there was both a question and an answer, and since they were not originally in written form, they must have been in oral form. It is not only silly to say that the Sages invented an arbitrary answer to the question, it also does not hold water due to the fact that if there is no Oral Law, G-d has given the Jews a useless commandment (a habitually goring bull...), and if we believe in G-d we are not free to assume that. If we do assume this, however, then we also assume that the entire Torah is useless since we cannot decipher it. What bigger tragedy would there be than an incomprehensible Torah? Yet that is what people assume the Torah is when they say that there is no Oral Law. It also makes room for people to enter their interpretations into the Torah. The existence of an Oral Law does not allow for that to occur.

But if logic is not your cup of tea, then perhaps you would enjoy a proof that is found in the text of the Torah itself. In Exodus18:13-26, Moses has the sole responsibility of providing conclusions to legal matters that the Jews bring to him. His father-in-law, Jethro, seeing that this task is daunting for Moses, says to him,

"You shall caution them regarding the decrees and the teachings, and you shall make known to them the path in which they should go and the deeds that they should do. And you shall discern from among the entire people, men of accomplishment, G-d-fearing people, men of truth, people who despise money, and you shall appoint them leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, and leaders of tens. They shall judge the people at all times, and they shall bring every major matter to you, and every minor matter they shall judge, and it will be eased for you, and they shall bear with you. If you do this thing - and G-d shall command you - then you will be able to endure, and this entire people, as well, shall arrive at its destination in peace." (Exodus 18, 20-23)

Just a second here; "Leaders of thousands? "They shall judge the people at all times?" "Every major matter... every minor matter?" Why so many judges, why at all times, and there were so many cases that there was actually a difference between minor and major cases? Sounds like a huge group of people had a massive amount of questions for Moses, a case factory. Could it be that they, just like us, were puzzled by the nature of many of their legal disputes? From where exactly was Moses retrieving this information that he was giving them in order to resolve their disputes? Did he make up the answers as he went along? The answer is that G-d gave to him the Oral Law on Mt. Sinai to accompany the Written Law. Remember, Moses made several trips up and down Mt. Sinai, only receiving the first Ten Commandments during his first forty-day period ascent.

How Do We Know that Isaac (and not Ishmael) Inherited all of Abraham's Property?

Logically speaking, since Ishmael was the G-d-chosen progenitor of Abraham according to Islam, which says that Isaac's being the Torah's chosen one of Abraham was a Jewish cover-up of the true record of history, there should be a written historical record of the descendants of Ishmael in the same way that there is a written historical record of Isaac's descendants, whom are the Jews. We know that this is not true, first, because there is no historical record in writing of the events of Ishmael's descendants. Secondly, all of the major events in the Torah happened to the descendants of Isaac, such as the 400-year slavery in Egypt, which culminated in their deliverance of the Torah and their being brought into the Land that G-d promised Abraham's descendants (Isaac or Ishmael?). How do Muslims explain that the descendants of Isaac were given the Torah and brought, under Joshua, to possess the Land that G-d promised Abraham? The descendants of Ishmael, whom appear infrequently in the Tanakh, are referred to as "Ishmaelites" and are not central to any of the themes other than being the ones to whom Joseph's brothers sold him. Near the end of the Tanakh (I am not sure where) appears the word "Arabs."

Thirdly, the formation of the religion of Islam in the 6th Century, with the Qur'an as its text, is the first time to make mention of any sort of history preceding it, and guess what, the entire Biblical history encapsulated in the Qur'an is the history of the Jews! If Ishmael's descendants recorded their history in the manner that did the descendants of Isaac, the new Muslims should have made reference to that as their religion's history, but they did not! Why not!? Why did they have to use the history of Isaac's descendants? The answer is that there was no other recorded Biblical history! We have to face it, after the Torah's final mention of the person Ishmael (Genesis 25:12-18) he is no longer mentioned; what becomes of him seems to be unknown. Suddenly in the 6th Century (more than 3,000 years later) a religion arises with its founder claiming to be the descendant of Ishmael coming to claim his rightful inherited legacy of Abraham; why had none of Ishmael's descendants taken it upon themselves to rectify this historical injustice and discrepancy earlier? Where were they, who they they, and what were they doing this whole time (more than 3,000 years)? That Muhammad brought the message of Islam to a civilization of Arabs whom were polytheists alludes that somewhere along the line the descendants of Ishmael became polytheists, i.e., veered from the monotheism of their fathers Ishmael and Abraham and their mother Hagar. Their history is nowhere to be found, and even if it was, it would all be rife with polytheism and so Islam has nothing (no historical monotheism) on which to stand. Grappling with this reality, the founder of Islam claims that all of the Biblical figures (including Jesus) are the progenitors of Islam, and they were all Jews!

Further, even though Islam claims that Ishmael is the heir to Abraham's legacy, which would suggest a blood, and therefore "genetic" association with being a Muslim, it makes an interesting contradiction; Islam claims itself to be a pure religion having nothing to do with genetics, ethnicity, or bloodline, i.e., to be strictly about faith. If this is true then why does the Muslim tradition emphasize that the true legacy of Abraham comes from the lineage of a specific son? If bloodline is irrelevant, why does it matter that Muhammad was a descendant of Ishmael, why does one have to be a descendant of any particular son if Islam is based purely on faith and has no blood, ethnic, or genetic component? I would advise not to rack your brain trying to find an answer because there is is no answer, but don't take my word for it, ask a Muslim. Islam has dealt with this discrepancy relatively well, but not well enough, by saying that both Ishmael and Isaac are the inheritors of Abraham's legacy, but just that Ishmael inherited the larger and better portion of that legacy. How is this an acceptable view to Muslims when the Torah's view, which says that Isaac inherited the larger and better section of Abraham's legacy, is what they find unacceptable? Simultaneously, the Muslim tradition insists on the equality of Ishmael and Isaac and states that Ishmael received the larger portion, yet only one could be true.

The Jewish tradition has nothing to hide; Isaac received the larger portion of Abraham's legacy by Divine command, while Ishmael received the legacy of monotheism as well but none of Abraham's property. To our modern eyes this can seem politically incorrect, but not according to the social and cultural standards more than 3,000 years ago. It was a commandment but G-d but we have no reason to ignore the sociological element. Further, let us be honest: Muhammad did not establish the religion of Islam in order to correct an age-old injustice for the same reason I stated earlier; why wasn't there a revolutionary Arab whom started Islam at an earlier point in history. The truth is that Muhammad tapped into Biblical history simply because it would give Islam the appearance of antiquity and would afford him the followers whom he desperately needed, and therefore he did was necessary. The reality of Islam is that Muhammad created it because 6th Century pagan Saudi Arabia was in desperate need of monotheism and an entire new political system, which Muslims treat as a validating reason for the establishment of Islam.

Now to those who prefer Biblical proofs over logical ones, Genesis 25:5 says, "Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac." Remember, if the Muslim tradition has no problem with the notion of one son getting more than the other, then it should have no problem with Isaac getting more than Ishmael, which is the truth. Have no fear! Genesis 9 says, "His (Abraham's) sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre." Further, all of the promises that G-d promised would happen with Ishmael to Hagar come true, and even further, the end of this Parsha (Chayei Sarah, the Life of Sarah), ends with the statement, "These were the years of Ishmael's life: a hundred and thirty-seven years, when he expired and died, and was gathered to his people." (Genesis 25:17). This is the same ending that all of the respected figures of the Torah receive, namely Abraham and all the other Patriarchs and Matriarchs.

Musical Throne

Musical Throne -

My friend here at the yeshiva told me that a Rabbi of his told him that secular music has a higher potential for emotional connection than religious music. He didn't state why, but my impression is that secular music doesn't bother limiting itself in scope as to what it says or how it expresses things, and therefore it is like an unbound animal. Therefore, music of this type speaks to a very active part of the human being, which is the animal side, and the truth is that a larger percentage of humanity does not bother controlling the animal in them and therefore secular music is a popular mode of expression for much of humanity. According to my friend, the Rabbi stated that music of this type is almost barbaric, which I understand him to mean not necessarily barbaric in content but barbaric in that it does not regulate itself.

Music can be aligned with spirituality and with religion, and through the ages human beings have used music in their connection to the spiritual, be they pagan or philosopher or monotheist. But why would religious music offer less of a connection than secular, which might be very, very spiritual? I have a feeling that only people who have managed to tap into what it means to be a religious person have been able to connect to religious music, whose spirituality is deep and rich but concealed in a particular train of thought which is also deeply connected to the way one lives life. Nevertheless, the spirituality in religious music is not inaccessible to the general population. It is almost as if one has to sensitize his/her ear to religious thought before one can comprehend in the inherent spirituality within it, and religious thought is not separable from religious living. The perception for many people, whom do not live religious lifestyles, is that religious music is not as spiritual as secular music, because the latter offers a more readily accessible palatte of sounds and lyrics that speaks to a very base element of humanity. The perception that secular music is more spiritual than religious music is due to the number of people whom have not genuinely found a religious connection in thier lives and therefore it is more difficult for them to see the rich colors present in religious music. There is a giant pot of emotions in secular music, a huge mish-mosh of uncharted emotions and sentiments, and therefore the general populace finds solace in this music because it speaks to everyone. The kind of emotions and sentiments which religious music taps into is more directed and eager to move in a specific direction than is just plainly spiritual music, eager to surround the listener with a particular sense of meaning, which plainly spiritual music does not contain. Spiritual music comes from a lower and baser place in the human soul, the animal spirit, and religious music, which is also spiritual, comes from a higher place in the human soul, the G-dly soul, the piece of the human and humanity which is actually a part of G-d. To find meaning and beauty and spiritual and emotional connection in this type of music, one must work to find a way to bring him/herself into a place of connection to his higher self and only then will that purview be made visible to his eyes.

The Torah says that high levels of spirituality can be reached through unholy things, i.e., things which do not have their source in G-dly spirituality. To use a contemporary type of example, people who are involved in dirty or base endeavours; drugs, permiscuity, crime, etc... are seen to give off an aura of confidence and heightened spirituality and which makes them alluring and charismatic individuals. The same thing is true of people on the opposite side of the spectrum, they reach a level of confidence and heightened spirituality which draws people to them through clean and pure means. In Parshat Balaam, Balaam, who is a prophet of Midian (a polytheistic peoples), reaches high levels of spirituality and even prophecy through engaging in relations with his female donkey, which the Torah specificially mentions is a "she-donkey." This is one of the lowest, basest, and filthiest acts possible, but it elevated Balaam to heights that most likely many "normal" people had not reached. Somehow, through these horrible and filthy acts, Balaam was able to tap into a heightened state of being - he was able to lose himself to the point where he found something outside of himself, but in the process he also ruined himself. G-d made the donkey turn around and speak to him, and the Midrash says that G-d did this in order to make Balaam understand that prophecy comes from Him, not from any form of klippah, a chassidic term for something which separates Man from G-d.
Musical Throne
Many high levels of spirituality can be attained through impure means, but pure means can bring a person much closer to G-d than any of those.