This is something that I wrote about two and a half years ago, soon after coming back from my Birthright trip to Israel. It was the beginning of the culmination of the events that eventually led me to begin what is commonly referred to as an observant lifestyle, or religious, or traditional, or orthodox, or whatever; I just prefer the term "Jewish" because that term rung truer than the rest.


Captain’s Log -


June 15, 2003:


I just finished reading a book called “Abraham.” Can you guess what the book is about? If you said “Abraham,” then you’re right. But what does that mean? What does something mean to be about Abraham? The book is about Abraham’s role in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and what the significance of that is. But I’m not gonna write about the book in here. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Judaism lately. Actually, not the religion of Judaism, but how it fits into my life. It’s fair to say that I’m secular, but I don’t like the tone of that word, it’s almost atheistic. I value Judaism, the religion, and I bring it into my life openly, but perhaps I have become a little closed to some of it, which I actually did by my own merit. I used to say that I don’t agree with everything in Judaism, which is a practice, a religion, a set system of beliefs. When I was younger and I heard people say that I thought it was stupid because I thought that they were just rebelling and they didn’t know why, now I see that there is more to it than that. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they WEREN’T rebels without causes. After weighing some things and going through some trials and errors, I have decided that I would like to bring a little more of Judaism into my life, that is, a little more of the practices of Judaism. Some things in Judaism I find highly satisfying and humbling and cleansing, such as not working or driving on Shabbat, not eating certain foods, Yom Kippur… But some things turn me off, and possibly because they aren’t part of Judaism. So what is Judaism? Judaism is the movement, and in some places in history, an institution, that sprung forth from Abraham’s “revelation” from God that there is only one and spiritual enlightenment is rooted in attempting to reach that God and a better understanding of the world. Now that makes sense, what doesn’t make sense, or much sense, are some of the practices and actions that have found their way into that upward climb and have been formalized within the thought-pattern of that climb as part of the duty of a human (in this case, a Jew). I don’t know which ones came later or first or even when, but I know what sounds artificial to me and what sounds right. Let’s face it, some things got into the religion in times when Jews were trying to be different from others, or were forced into it (ghettos and that sort of thing) and therefore, they aren’t part of the original “covenant.” Like halacha, for example. I think that it’s foolish to what extent halacha goes. I know that it would be impossible to have Judaism without it since some text is very vague, but I see Jews who put their energy into keeping halacha but not into thinking right, which I see as much more important. If you wanna do both, then good for you, but if you think that you’re being a good Jew because you keep all halacha, you’re a moron! I used to say that there is no such thing as a bad Jew. I would say that to people who felt that by not doing things they were bad Jews. There is such thing as a bad Jew, that is it! Someone who thinks Judaism is just about doing what is right but not thinking or feeling what is right, THAT is a bad Jew! That is a Jew that is out of touch with the world around him or her, and consequently, that is a bad human as well. I don’t reject certain practices because I immensely respect Judaism for its emphasis on doing and not just thinking or feeling. You need to move yourself through the actions, become what you are thinking, become what you are feeling, that way it is made REAL. I have such a high reverence for that that I LOVE my religion. Yes, I love it, I love that action, that thought, that we are connected to the world and a part of it and therefore we cannot truly be IN it if we do not MOVE like it, MOVE within it. It is very humbling, and that’s why physical things are very important in Judaism, such as the Wall. That is one reason why I broke out crying there, amongst others. That God is in physical things, not physically in them, maybe they are in Him. Either way, the Wall transcends verbal explanations of why it’s so important to me and to Jews. When everything else physical in Judaism can become dogmatic and pointless when stripped of thought and feeling, the Wall can NEVER do that! The Wall CREATES life, it tells me what I AM, not what others are NOT. It shows me where I’m FROM and grounds me THERE. But it also shows me that because of all these things, I am able to be selfish for it, but it tells what I AM, and I AM not selfish (I want not to be), and that is why the Wall hurts so much, something that I love so much. It puts me closer to God, and maybe that’s what hurts. Proximity is everything. When you are from God, far from His warmth, everything else is relative. Everything gives off some kind of heat, some real, some perceived. But when you are from enough away from the source of the warmth, it doesn’t matter if you move back ten feet or if you move forward twenty, there is a certain distance that you can be from God where small movements are irrelevant. But when you move significantly closer to God, the warmth becomes significantly more comforting. And there is a certain distance from God (never actually reaching Him until death) in which the warmth is so comforting and so pleasing, that not being able to be in closer proximity to God hurts, it actually hurts! Because of proximity. If this is the warmth that I feel being only here, and it is SO immense, then the actual love and warmth that God has to offer is OVERWHELMING! And it hurts because you want to be in that place with God, but you know that you are far and you feel yourself reaching out to Him and Him reaching out to you, but HE can’t touch you because you will die. And you are ultimately thankful for HIS being just so you can feel the IMMENSE warmth that He has to offer. And it is because you know that there is a perfect place next to God waiting, it hurts you that you are not there, that you are here, on Earth, only allowed some of God and in small increments, step-by-step. It hurts that you are in a world of chaos, you live for that warmth, you LIVE for it. You allow yourself to live and help others to live, you inject life into the world, and this is the only way to act out what you felt when you were in such close proximity to God. God accompanies the carrying out of His duty with amazing satisfaction so that you will LOVE IT, and you will do it more. You should do it anyway, but we are a physical creation and it’s the added bonus that God gives us when we do something that He would like us to do. He gives us warmth.





June 17th, 2003



I am beginning something new in my life. I am going to start keeping Shabbat. Maybe observing Shabbat is a better term, but it still doesn’t hit the nail on the head. Let me think of a better way to explain it, a way that will actually do a good job in expressing the intention of Shabbat. The week has seven days starting with Sunday and going all the way through Shabbat. Sunday is yom rishon (the first day) and Saturday is yom Shabbat, a derivative of the word sheva, which means seven. The days of the week are yom rishon, yom sheni, yom shlishi, yom revii yom chamishi, yom shishi, and yom Shabbat. The first six days literally mean “the first day,” “the second day,” and so on. But the last day is called “yom Shabbat,” which doesn’t mean “the seventh day” literally. “Yom shivi” means “the seventh day,” and the reason that it’s name is different than the other days is because it stands apart from the rest, it is different. It’s difference is expressed in its name, which is deliberately different so that its different “status” may be recognized upon simple usage of the word. One who understands that in Hebrew that “Shabbat” doesn’t fall into the counting pattern from one to seven, they will automatically see something different about the word. And that is the intent. You can automatically see that the week being seven days long and the last day being the emphasized one, standing apart from the rest, is fashioned after the “Creation” story in Genesis, which states that God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and hallowed it out as a day of rest for all humankind as a remembrance that He rested on that day. But to seek to live your life in this pattern, a seven-day week does not mean that you place a literal belief in the story of the seven-day Creation. You do not need to believe that it is literal in order to view Sunday as the first day of the week, work hard for six days, then allow yourself the seventh day as a day of rest. Furthermore, we humans live in “time,” we operate with the knowledge of the concept of time, which provides a skeleton for an otherwise free-flowing world in which we would be lost. Every “day” the sun goes up and it comes back down, that is a day, and it is a healthy structure. If the day is a healthy structure, then so is a week (and so on). It provides then that it is not unhealthy at all to view the week as a seven-day structure, if that is what you prefer. Keep in mind too that the WHOLE WORLD has accepted the idea of the week, time broken into a seven-day period, whether or not they have any religious affiliation; it is simply convenient. To add to that, the human psyche works well with the idea of beginning and end; everything starts and everything ends, the sun goes up and the sun comes down. It is the very breaking of time into sections, the very breaking of existence into events, that assigns a meaning to our lives. Who knew that such an arbitrary “man-made” structure could be so healthy? But it is hardly man-made, we just fill in the gaps. Nevertheless, the concept of a seven-day week in which one works for the first six days and rests on the seventh is a healthy way to combine sectioning off time and the concept of “beginning” and “end.” Perhaps it is with a Jewish bias that I am saying this, but that is exactly the point, I am Jewish and if I want to live my life with this type of week, opposed to the “Christian” week, then I can. Shabbat is a day which is supposed to be opened-up for relaxation, both physical and mental. It is a time in which you can leave all work behind and use to be with your family or your friends or yourself. It is a time in which you can stay at home. The Torah says that nothing should do work on that day, that all your animals should be given rest from the drudges of the hard week. In modern Judaism, according to halacha, this is interpreted to include machines and cars, they should not be worked. If you look at them as animals that need to be rested, that is foolish. But if you look at the concept behind it as operating a vehicle forcing you to work, or using the vehicle that you use during your work-week, then it makes more sense. Then the car actually becomes the animal, using your oxen to plow your fields or your camels to carry your water, it rests and hence so can you. Furthermore, Jews who observe Shabbat do not “go out” on that day, no clubbing, no partying, etc… Although this is fun, it is not relaxation. Hence a distinction between fun and relaxation is made, and relaxation is favored. Other than the physical relaxation emphasized, is a mental and spiritual relaxation. If you are not working, not driving, and not partying, then your mind and your soul are allowed to relax as well. You do not need to worry yourself with the concerns of the week, nor with your studies, nor with your financial situation, nor with the girl that you like, nor with anything. It is a true opening-up time which allows for total relaxation; body, mind, and spirit, to fit the “hippyish” cliché.

Before I came to this conclusion, I used to TRY to make Shabbat special, I would TRY to observe it. I tried to force physical actions into Shabbat hoping that they would become significant to me, but that never happened. As a result, Shabbat was just another day for me, just a day to go partying with my friends on. But now, a couple of years later, Shabbat is quite different for me. It is an extremely humbling experience and I am forced to tie it back to one thing; the visit to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

This was the day after we visited it. It just so happens that on the Birthright trip that I went on in the Winter, we stayed in Jerusalem for about one and a half weeks. On Friday night (the days officially start at night), Shabbat, we had the choice of going to a Shabbat service of our choice of observance level; reconstructionist, reform, conservative, orthodox. I wanted to do something different, so I went to the reform one where a cute girl proceeded to show us how to do Yoga. I decided that, while this was fun, that it really wasn’t what I should be doing. I felt as if I was missing out on something, and that I was letting something down. I felt as if I wasn’t helping to bind the week as it properly should have been (for myself and for Jews, and for Shabbat itself, which is considered a queen in Judaism). Although at the time, these thoughts were not conscious, I had a nagging urge telling me to go to the Orthodox service. Luckily the Yoga session ended quickly, so I put on my socks and shoes and hurried down to the Temple. I arrived there and the people were so happy to greet us, American Jews coming to Israel, to Jerusalem, to observe Shabbat. They were happy that people were actually coming. We entered the synagogue and sat down. As the service went on, I began to feel somewhat alienated from the service since I did not know the prayers they were singing (they must have been Ashkenaz or something), so I really felt nothing. But I was happy about something. In Judaism, Shabbat is a queen that comes to greet you, and you invite her with open arms and let her in. You can say that this is what I felt in the Yoga room, that I was missing something and that something was missing me, it must have been ha-malkat ha-Shabbat, the Shabbat queen. Here I was in a synagogue, with fellow Jews, in Israel, in Jerusalem, on Shabbat, and we were singing and praying and banging on the piews, never silently allowing Shabbat to enter the room, but accepting her with a grand ovation, “Please please come in, you are welcome!” The more vigor I accepted her with, the more my heart opened, and the more my heart opened, the more I was able to grasp the significance of this moment in time and this place and with these people. When the numbers on your digital watch change from 11:59 PM to 12:00 AM, you hear a little beep and you know it is the next day. But that is how science records time-changes, this is how the human heart records; my heart was beating furiously, my head was tickling, my eyes were slightly watering, my breathing became fast, my heart expanded with the feeling of love and connection to my fellow Jews, and at the same time, with the world and all that were in it, I felt that I was going to explode, I felt higher, as if I was being lifted, I felt in-tune with everything, a part of it yet still a vessel of my own, I felt the actual fabric of time, the actual flowing of the river and it was flowing through me and through the synagogue and through the streets and through Jerusalem and through Israel and probably extending its way through the world in its own fashion, I felt time CHANGING with no breaks, I felt Shabbat coming, and it was here. This might have been what one calls an epiphany, and it all started off with walking into a synagogue and feeling nothing, it changed me.

That night, we had the option of going to a Shabbat service at night. Considering what I just had felt at the synagogue and that this was new to me, I decided not to go, but to let the events and emotions of this night to sink in. In the morning, we also had the option of waking up early and going to a Shabbat service, but I decided on the opposite, I stayed in bed. I decided to fulfill my “relaxation duties” to God and to myself, I would live out the Shabbat as it was intended, I would rest in my bed. Remaining in bed was my Shabbat service, the sounds of my breathing while sleeping were my prayers, fully living out what Shabbat was about, relaxation. In this, the meaning of Shabbat and of worshipping God reached their highest significance for me, the highest that I had ever felt, and it was so easily done! But it had not easily come, it was rather quite painful and it started with the visit to the Wailing Wall, which I felt had opened me up, raised me a little higher, showed me the world as it was, taken something out, maybe put something inside, and caused me to cry like a little boy as if no one was watching at that stone structure. I cried like the day I was born next to Suzanne and Dan, who cried like me, and we hugged each other. That was a turning point on my Birthright trip, and it was a turning point in my life, and I don’t intend to let what I learned that day become useless.



Almost as beautiful as the welcoming of Shabbat, is the leaving of Shabbat. The service wishing Shabbat away is called “havdalah,” which literally means the physical word “separation,” or “distinction.” Havdalah does just that, it separates Shabbat from the rest of the week. Again is the concept of time and beginning and end. But there is one difference; Shabbat is not considered to be just a time that is different from others, it actually gains a sort of higher status than the rest of the days. It is not just a different time, it is in a different time, it is in a different place, it is entirely different from the week which follows it, it is holy, and havdalah seeks to physically, mentally, and spiritually make that difference, to build that little wall between the holy and the normal (which is also holy, mind you). This is something that I did not understand before my experiences in Israel on Shabbat, and I never understood when others did it. When I heard people speaking about Shabbat, trying to explain to me certain things, I considered it, and them, foolish, and I as understanding and wise. I wondered why they didn’t make a better effort in trying to explain to me the significance of Shabbat. But it would have been fruitless, as fruitless as the previous sentence in trying to explain what Shabbat was. Now I realize that something that I didn’t then, and probably something that those who I asked did realize, that I was asking a question that could not be answered, or at least not by a human. It took those experiences that happened to me that day to answer my question, and they are totally unproduceable by a human being. It was the events of the day and the day before it that made it happen, it was life, it was nature, it was me not knowing what was going to happen, it was walking in the dark, it was amazing, it was God.





June 17th, 2003 – On Time



The Earth revolves around the Sun giving us a period of time of light and a period of time of dark, a full day. The modern world considers the rising of the sun the “beginning” of the day and when it sets the “end” of the day. Science, rigidly living by the sectioning off of the concept of time, considers the “day,” or the “morning” to start at 12:00 AM, which is interestingly enough labeled “midnight.” Of course, by this logic, the day is twenty-four hours long and “ends” at 11:59 PM, at night. But there is an inherent flaw in this reasoning, although it is very convenient. Assuming that time can be accurately sectioned off in minutes, it is logical to say that 11:59 is the last minute of the day and that 12:00 AM is the first minute of the next, but can time not be broken into infinitely small units of measurement? If this is true then what happens to the last millisecond of the day? Or to a measurement even smaller than that, or smaller than that? If you think like this, time is not a series of blocks of time, however small they may be, but actually a superfluous stream in which we insert breaks in order to allow ourselves to understand it better. The Jewish night, according to modern Judaism, starts when the sun goes down. This is determined by the sighting of the first three stars in the sky when enough light from the sun has disappeared so that the first three stars (dim lights) can be seen. The Jewish morning must start when the sun comes up, that is, when no more stars are visible. This provides that a day is never actually 24 hours long, but shifting during the seasons of the year according to the placement of the Earth in relation to the Sun.

No New Revelation

How can a revelation replace another if the revelation (is claimed) to be reiterating, not replacing, another (not previous) revelation? This would be like replacing something with another version of the same thing. With respect to Islam, this is the true backbone of the religion, its replacement of the Judaism and Christianity that came before it; this claim deserves some attention.

First of all, we must contend with the notion that a revelation replaces another in the first place. For example, Islam's central belief is the replacement of Judaism and its tenets; why? The answer that Islam gives is that the Jews, the supposed followers of Judaism, went off the path and strayed from the message of the Torah and the reiterations of the prophets. Not to mention, they also deliberately altered the text for their own purposes, i.e., to advocate a lie that they were the only chosen people.

However, why must one group's revelation be intended for another? For example, G-d gave the Torah to the Jews when there were no other people in the world that were ready to accept and embrace a notion of pure monotheism, and it is necessary to mention that there were no Muslims alive at this point in human history. If the Muslims had been alive then, then they could have accepted the monotheistic point of view. Thousands of years later, when the Arabs, through their figure Muhammad, had their own monotheistic revelation, it did not suffice them to live with it on their own, they felt that they had to spread their particular monotheistic viewpoint to the Jews. The question is "why" and the answer is that they viewed (and had to) Divine Revelation as a continuing process. In this they are right save for one minor mistake; the Jews also believe in continual Divine Revelation, but in the sense that G-d reveals Himself from one group to another until the whole world is united under Him. To contrast, Islam believes in continual Divine Revelation in the sense that one Revelation has to replace another; it is not sufficient that different groups of people exist in the same world with different understandings of pure monotheism. This attitude is what gave the Jews the ability to accept the theology and existence of Islam, while the opposite of this attitude is what made Judaism intolerable Muslims.

We must also wonder what more there is to be learned by a new revelation; if G-d gave the eternal Torah to the Jews, there is nothing new for Islam to teach to Jews, which would also mean that Jews can remain Jews and be honest to G-d's will. This makes Islam irrelevant for Jews, which is one reason why Muhammad had such a violent reaction to Jews when they rejected him.

But it doesn't make Islam irrelevant for Muslims; they were not around when the Torah was given to the Jews, and it's quite possible (and wise) to consider Islam "Torah for Muslims," the problems begin when Muslims want Jews to become like Muslims. For instance, Muslim tradition explains that the prophets of the Torah, which describes them as "Muslims," castigated the Jews for straying from G-d's message, which would have returned them to G-d, to submission, or Islam. When we consider that the prophets were Jews telling Jews to return to the Torah, it makes sense, but when Muslim tradition defines those who followed G-d as Muslims and those who didn't as non-believers (who just happened to be Jews), then we get a formula for confusion. Indeed, we can say that Jews are still supposed to live with the Torah, while Muslims are supposed to live with Islam. It is inaccurate to say that Islam replaces Judaism, but rather that Islam replaces polytheism for Arabs in the same way that Judaism did for the Hebrews. Having said that, there is nothing for the Jews in Islam; all that they need and indeed, all that G-d asks of them is required in the Torah. Islam is not a "final revelation" in the sense that they replace one another, it is "the only revelation," for Arabs. Islam should be careful not to turn the final revelation into the final solution.

Furthermore, let's be honest, the Jews have been around longer than the Muslims, which has given them the opportunity to shift with the times and adapt their own monotheistic tradition in concordance with the Torah's Law on their own; there is nothing that Islam, the Q'uran, or Muslim jurisprudence can contribute to this process. In fact, all it can do is the opposite, it can fight the Jews and try to force change on them in ways that they do not approve, which, unfortunately, it has done repeatedly and continuously through history; this can largely be attributed to its necessity of viewing itself as the final and only revelation that everyone must conform, confirm, and convert to. Jews have had their own struggles with the surrounding world when it came to the exposure of monotheistic ideals to the pagan and polytheistic world and have caused struggles and even rifts in the Jewish religious sphere, not to mention, another religion (Christianity). Islam should worry about its own internal realities and less about Judaism's life, which, not to mention, would be an adviseable political strategy for Arabs when it comes to Israel; there is a clear connection between these two Muslim attitudes towards things external. Islam's aggression is also attributed to the power (that it once had), which meant that it reached harmony with its neighbors in ways other than letting them practice their own religions, but through power.

But the struggle to bring the knowledge of monotheism to the world cannot end, although it will have to change in form without taking away from its core truths, and violent force is not the proper, nor the effective means. Islam cannot be blamed for attempting to unify people under a monotheistic vision, for this too is the Messianic vision of Judaism and the Torah; the only thing that can be called into question is the method, and even more than this, Islam's urge to replace Judaism as part of this process of bringing knowledge of monotheism to the world. If monotheism is truly what Islam wants (which is what the Jews want), then it will have to relinquish its belief that it has the monopoly over G-d and see Judaism and Jews for what they are, the original and perpetual bringers of this type of knowledge to the world, not as corrupted sinners. Notice that Judaism does not call for, or try, to replace Islam with Judaism, for considering Islam's numbers and purported belief, it is clear that it has a high potential for goodness; we are all waiting for it to be unlocked and released. Afterall, Jewish tradition says that Ishmael did t'shuva (a loose translation of 'repented') and was a "tzaddik," a righteous person.

Channukah 2005


Larry Domnitch, THE JERUSALEM POST  Dec. 26, 2005

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What induced Antiochus Epiphanes to attempt to eradicate Judaism? Some speculate that he had his own political motives. However, he initially had good relations with the Jews who had helped him take Jerusalem from his rival, the Egyptian Ptolemy. The chronicler of that era, Josephus Flavius mentions that Antiochus initially granted Jews the right to keep their laws. (Josephus Flavius, Antiquities, Book XII, chapter 3:3) He had also decreed that the Temple of Jerusalem continue to be respected by all as a Jewish institution under Jewish auspices. Furthermore, the attempt to eradicate an existing nation by outlawing their religious practices was unprecedented.

One might presume that all of Antiochus's predecessors who had ruled over the Land of Israel for over 150 years since the conquest of
Alexander the Great, had themselves, imagined forcing Hellenism and idolatry, the universal creeds of the time, upon the Jews. All other
nations readily accepted Hellenism, so naturally the question arose, what about the Jews?

The Jews for the most part were left alone to practice their faith and live their way of life. The Greeks initially on favorable terms with the Jews, had also understood that they were steadfast in their beliefs, and there was a futility of attempting to force them to accept other creeds and practices.

However, as Antiochus Epiphanes ruled, the numbers of Jews who had embraced Hellenism were increasing. Those Jews known as, mityavnim sought to popularize Hellenism among the Jews. The Book of Maccabees quotes the Hellenists who proclaimed, "let us go out and make a covenant with the heathen around us." (Maccabees 1:11)

As two brothers, both mityavnim, and heirs to the position of the High Priesthood feuded for that position, one of the brothers, Menelaus, went to the emperor and told him that the mityavnim were "desirous to leave the laws of their country, and the Jewish way of living according to them, to follow the king's laws, and the Grecian way of living" (Antiquities, book 12, Chapter 5:1). He then proposed the construction of a Greek style stadium in Jerusalem, to which the emperor consented.

When Antiochus eventually issued his infamous decrees outlawing Jewish practices, the Jewish Hellenists readily consented. "They (the mityavnim) profaned the Sabbath and sacrificed to heathen altars" (Maccabees 1:43).

IT IS plausible that Antiochus was influenced by the existence of the mityavnim from whom he might have perceived that the Jews'
tenacity and resolve could actually be broken. If some Jews could accept Hellenism, maybe they all could. However, the Jews proved him
wrong.

There have been similar situations facing the Jews in their history. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet regime banned
Jewish observances and closed Jewish houses of worship. Similar to Antiochus, their intent was to eliminate Judaism by destroying its
spiritual sources. Jewish assimilation in the Soviet Union was on the increase. Furthermore, there was a comparatively small but vocal
Jewish wing of the Communist Party, which in 1918 passed a resolution that called for "suspending the operations of Jewish institutions" within Jewish communities. A section of the Jewish communists, known as the Yevsektzia, also zealously aided efforts against Judaism in Russia. They helped the regime close religious institutions, and informed on those Jews who continued Jewish observances clandestinely. The Soviet authorities were also no doubt influenced by their modern day mityavnim.

However, during the difficult years of Soviet rule, courageous efforts among Jews who acted as modern-day Maccabees, persevering to
preserve their heritage, bore outstanding results. Today there are multitudes of dedicated and observant Jews from the Russian republics in Israel, and other communities worldwide.

PRESENTLY, THE world watches the nation of Israel. As nations line up to pressure and demand more Israeli concessions, what if the people of Israel held their ground? What if they categorically said no to a Palestinian state and to the pressure? What if they proclaimed that they have but one country while the Arabs have virtually unlimited territory? What if they stated that no nation can be compelled to facilitate the creation of an entity that would continue to oppose and act against its very existence? If the Jews were unmovable, world reaction might be different.

Instead, President George W. Bush, Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, the EU, and various other world leaders speak of visions of
Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, although there is no tangible sign that these visions have any value.

But when many in the Israeli media and Knesset, along with American Jewish leaders utter the same lines, and espouse the same positions,
what reaction from world leaders should one expect?

The pressure we face may not be so much about George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, the EU and the UN, as about an internal Jewish issue of self image; of how Jews perceive themselves within the global community.

Will events of the modern times compel Jews to seek to merge with the international community at the cost of imperiling the well-being of the Jewish state? Now is the time for modern Maccabees to stand up.

The writer is the author of The Cantonists: The Jewish Children's Army of the Tsar recently released by Devora Publishing.

Munich Review --

Note - If you haven't seen "Munich" yet, perhaps you should wait to see it before reading this since I give away some parts of the movie.

I watched Munich a few days ago after reading a few reviews saying that it equated the Palestinian murder of the Israeli Olympics team in 1972 with the Israeli retaliative assassinations of the terrorists. Dennis Ross, on the other hand, said that it did no such thing, so I decided to watch it and see for myself; these are my perceptions.

If I could speak about the movie in the terms of an essay, I would say that its final conclusion is that revenge, ultimately, destroys, even if the intent of the revenge was justified. However, the movie didn't arrive me at that conclusion immediately, Speilberg navigated through a series of perceptions and gradually tried to get the viewer to see that point of view.

Example; the movie starts off with the Palestinian terrorists hopping the fence to the Olympic games, entering the hotel where the Israeli team was staying, breaking in, and beginning their hostage situation/rampage. During these few minutes of film, there were not many available emotions to feel towards them other than anger and resentment.

However, the table soon turns; when the Israeli assassination team targets their first terrorist by planting a bomb in his telephone, the same exact angles and shots are used to show the Israeli's entering his house as it did when showing the Palestinian terrorists entering the hotel. It's a subtle usage of footage, but the intent is to draw a parallel between the morality of the actions by making one scene remind you of another. In a movie, the producer is G-d and creates the necessary world to get the desired points across.

Again, the movie doesn't break the thesis to the audience immediately, it has them simmer in it before gradually slipping it to them. The plot of the first assassination was to call the house of the terrorist when he answered the phone and then to detonate the bomb. However, to the audience's horror, his young daughter answers the phone, only to show the assassination team abort the mission at the last second. They try again and succeed with their mission the second time around after the daughter leaves. Perhaps this was the movie's intent or perhaps it wasn't, but this made a clear delineation between the Israeli assassination team's effort to avoid killing innocents and non-combatitants, in contrast to the Palestinian terrorists' specific goal of the exact opposite.

What interested me is that as the movie unfolded, one saw that its primary emphasis was the moral question of retaliation to terrorism in the form of assassination (and the equation of the two), and not the moral question, or the way in which a culture of terrorism/hijacking develops, of terrorism itself. Clearly it would take a more complicated and perhaps expensive movie to explain the mentality of Palestinian terrorism within the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict; it is relatively easier to make a movie exploring the moral issues of retaliatory measures to such terrorism. Plus, for some, it is easier to point the finger at themselves than to accuse others.

All in all, the movie portrays the Israeli assassination team with the noble and justified goal of eliminating the terrorists. In order to do this, the lead assassin, a former Mossad agent (the actor does a less than good imitation of an Israeli) has to bargain with scum-of-the-earth international hitmen, who describe themselves to him as "ideologically permiscuous." After some double- and triple-crossing and general manipulation, it becomes apparent that the Mossad, with its righteous agenda, becomes likened to the hitmen it mingles with by way of association. In other words, it is as if to say, "Don't become what you hate." More patronizing would be to say, "Don't become what you hate, even if you have the right to hate it because it wants to kill you."

This message is clearly strewn throughout the movie, especially when the assassins become thirsty for revenge and go out of their way to target terrorists not on their list, basically, just for the heck of it. More shocking is when they go out of their way to kill a women agent that murdered their friend, and the way in which they killed her is particularly gruesome; firing darts at her naked body that cause her to choke on her own blood. They stand there watching it gush out of the holes in her chest, and when one of them covers her naked blood-covered body, another quickly opens her robe back up to add humiliation to her death. At this point in time it is hard not to see them as terrorists, but again, the producer calls the shots.

An interesting scene is when one of the assassins, the bomb-maker, a genuinely nice fellow, leaves the group when they go on their revenge rampage. His moral criticism is that of revenge and that Jews should take the moral high road, which is absolutely true, and wonders if the Israeli government should capture the terrorists and try them in Israel as was done with the Nazi's in the Nuremburg Trials rather than assassinate them. This morning, as I was waiting for my waffles to heat up before going to work, I thought of this; would it have actually been better to capture the terrorists and to bring them to Israel for trial? Would it have been better to travel to whatever country the terrorists were in, and one-by-one, infiltrate them and bring them to Israel? Would it have been better to cause a potential blood-bath by attempting to capture people that don't mind dying and killing innocents, putting them on a plane with the approval of their country's of residence government, and flying them to Israel, of all places? Had this succeeded, the entire Arab world would now see a group of Palestinians being tried and probably put to death by the Israeli government, and they would join the ranks of martyrs. Would it have been better to assassinate them and to end the story there? Either method produces martyrs, but one is out in the open and the other is covert. Furthermore, the German government held a trial to convict those guilty of war crimes, with America's supervision and in front of the whole world; there was no way for them to retaliate. The capturing of and bringing in of the terrorists of Black September would have not been as clean and much bloodier than the assassinations.

Palestine and the Racist Minute Men--

** This is a response paper that I had to write for a class after watching a presentation about the Minute Men.**

I had mixed thoughts and emotions as I was paying attention to the Minute Man presentation on Wednesday. For the most part, I feel empathy for the suffering of other people, in this case, the Mexicans who try to find economic comfort in the United States. For the most part, I am also in disagreement with the attitudes of neo-Nazi-type groups, although I think that it is very easy for (otherwise normal) people, perhaps many, to be sucked into hate politics, especially when they feel that they’re cause is justifiable. It is not always easy to pinpoint hate when you see it, which is many times elusive.

However, despite my strong disagreements with neo-Nazi type attitudes, I do not feel that the speakers present at the presentation made a particularly strong argument for their rejection of the United States’ border policies, except for perhaps the first woman that spoke. I think that a lot of race-, nation-, and economic-based resentment are the primary culprits behind this conflict, but the speakers appealed to the emotions more than they did to the speakers’ intellect, and particularly to their emotions, which left me unconvinced on many of their points. In all honesty, I expected to be presented with more of a usage of fact, statistics, and evidence, but was not. I feel that they presented the audience with only a slice of the information needed to get a fuller picture of this scenario, and that, by using certain types of rhetoric, expected to pull the audience along. Regardless of this, I nevertheless feel that their cause is justified because clearly there are issues that need to be dealt with, but it seems that they felt that they were “preaching to the choir,” and did not take into account that there would be people in the audience who did not already have their minds made up on the entire issue. (I saw some of the people around me nodding their head in agreement and heard some calling ‘the invterviewees’ names).

For example, the video made by the gentleman did a good job of showing the audience how things looked in some of the areas on the Mexican side of the border, and really tried to get us to feel what he felt. Having said that, I can empathize with his emotions, but it did not go much farther than that. To relate this to one of my own experiences (which is actually not really mine), my grandmother used to tell me about her negative experiences in Libya before she moved to Israel in 1948. She would tell me about the Libyan that murdered her father by running over him and then backing over him again to make sure that he was dead (this was never confirmed), and about the British-freed concentration camps that she found herself in, and my grandfather and her brother reinforced these horror stories when they told me that their shops were closed down and synagogues were burned. I have no doubt in my mind that these events occurred, partially because I trust their memory and partially because I have read of these types of incidents. However, these memories, as trustable as they are, represent a slice of the bigger picture of what was going on in Libya between Jews and Muslims prior to and during the establishment of the State of Israel; there were most-likely times in Libya when Jews lived under tolerable circumstances, as they did in many of the other Arab countries at other times.

But none of this justifies the type of hate that the Minute Men have towards immigrants; it can be said that it is representative of a longer-standing issue that we have here in the United States, a view that white is the norm, and these types of things are very difficult to squeeze out of a society when they have already found shelter within it. It can be said that their resentment is justifiable on certain counts, but even the most despicable of opinions can be backed by certain truths and understandable emotion.

If we view the way that America came into existence, generally speaking, there was a hierarchy of European ethnicities, with Protestants being on top, then Catholics; English above the Irish, Italians, Poles, etc, and Jews were one of the lowest (although not all Jews are European). Then “people of color” came into play, and they “naturally” had a harder time fitting into this society. This social trend continued to play itself out, and it has been improved much in the last two-hundred and thirty years after America received its independence, although there is still room for improvement. The view that the Minute Men hold can be attributed to this view of white superiority, which comes with the notion that to be American is to be white.

However, there were small kernels of truth in some of the things that the Minute Men were saying, but to their misfortune, whatever small amounts of logic they had were obstructed by their racist ideals. Furthermore, the gentleman who made the video did not bother to recognize their perspectives and then logically discuss why there wrong, but rather portrayed them solely as caricatures with comical and dangerous points of view, totally dismissing any kernel of truth that they might have had, and if the audience had thought more critically, he might have drawn away from his own argument.

So if I were to filter out the racist garble advanced by the Minute Men interviewed in the video and tried to unearth some of logical motives behind their flawed perspectives (which should have been the job of the video-maker), I would say that they feel threatened. Why do they feel threatened? They feel threatened because people look out their window and judge reality by what they see and not by what happened before their lifetime. In reality, it would be good if people did that, but they don’t always. Even the dispossessed, versus the dispossessor, eventually need to grasp reality in light of the present and not of the past, only if for their own mental well-being. These Minute Men feel as if they are being encroached upon, and although this land was not originally theirs, it has become their land by proxy of living on it.

To make a relevant political analogy, Israel, the land of the Jews, has become considered “Arab land” simply because Arabs conquered and settled there after the 7th century, during the one-thousand eight-hundred and seventy eight year-long (70-1948) “hiatus” that was initiated by a Roman invasion. Christians and Muslims, amongst other peoples, subsequently invaded and fought over it on their own terms during this timeframe. Yet today, the international community believes that the establishment of an Arab Palestinian state on Israeli soil is thought of as being the only way for there to be peace in the region. The analogy would be like establishing an American “state,” more like an enclave really – “Minutemanistan,” where Minute Men (and Women) can live in peace. In a starkly similar way that Mexicans are considered illegal if found in America without identification, Jews are confined to “Israel Proper,” (that is, minus Gaza and the West Bank) and are considered obtrusive and illegal settlers, yet their presence clearly had high potential for improving the economy of the surrounding Palestinians. They have already been pulled out of these areas due to overwhelming international pressure, as well as American pressure, yet we have yet to see a policy that will force Mexicans to leave America. Israeli's have to conclude that this pullout was in their best interest, and considering all of their options, it was the best (and the only realistic) one.

American history and the sense of American patriotism was based on the settlement of land, and we cannot expect people to annihilate their sense of self-worth by denying their history, but we can expect them to allow others to succeed in that particular area of land. I would have liked if the speakers had spent more time talking about what the State of Mexico is able to do for its people rather than it having to be brought up by people in the audience in order to be addressed.

To My Friend Avi, Regarding the Previous Post --

Avi, this is an article I got in an e-mail, thought you'd like to
read it.

Here's my thought on it (not like you asked for it, or anything). This guy seems right on, and do we really need Christians (who care about us) telling us how to be Jews?

It seems that Zionism, as an ideology, has finally revealed that it has some holes in it. Maybe this "revelation" is not so sudden for some people (all of whom I don't agree with), but it is more-or-less, more sudden for me. The major hole that I'm referring to is that Zionism ceases to make Israeli's proud of their absolute right to the land of Israel anymore. In other words, if Zionism is defiend solely as a cultural and social movement designed to allow Jews to live in their own nation as a free people, then the key point of Zionism is nationalism, and nations, especially diplomatic nations like Israel, give land for peace. I'm not criticizing it because it's true and sometimes has been necessary, but isn't this what we are supposed to tell people when they criticize Israel for being a pariah? Aren't we supposed to tell them that Israel has given land for peace?

The point is this, and you probably disagree, but Zionism, other than being fully agreeable on the essential principles that it brings up, is lacking when we realize that it doesn't motivate Jews (Israeli's) to stick to their land anymore The Jews that established Israel were awesome Zionists that weren't willing to give much up, but what's become of that ideology? It's no longer feasible because Israel doesn't give it much credibility as a policy (nor does the world). This means one of two things; either there are no longer anymore true Zionists, or something entirely different, that Zionism has run its course as being useful. I mean, essentially almost every citizen of Israel today is a descendant of people who were ardent Zionists, even the jerks at University of Haifa (such as Ilan Poopy) who rewrite history until I feel I want to puke.

This doesn't go to say that Zionism is completely incompatible with Judaism, for it is absolutely compatible with Judaism. Living in Israel is a Jewish thing to do, keeping the mitzvah's is a Jewish thing to do; these are well-known and don't even have to be discussed. However, what does need to be discussed is the opinion that Israel is "anti-Jewish" (in the religious sense) because it is not a theocracy, i.e., found the balance between life and religion, all of which will occur in the time of the Meshiach. When people (Jews) criticize Israel based only on religious criteria and completely ignore the national sentiments on the ground, they are essentially making the same mistake, and they are thinking in a way that is incompatible with life in Israel. Much of the time, although not always, these people have not really experienced Israel, and this is part of the reason behind their resistance to it. They would like to re-create Israel in their image as they see fit; if the people aren't ready for it, even though it is clearly their birthright, their Torah, and their commandments by Hashem, if they aren't ready for it, it's akin to an invasion of sorts, a cultural or even a religious invasion, and it can't be done, and won't work. Jews have to embrace Judaism.

Other times, they have experienced Israel as it is today, and sometimes this leads people to an informed decision based on the empirical evidence of life they've found there. In the end, however, it doesn't make sense to have a "Jewish boycott" of sorts on Israel, the country, because it is not (yet) Eretz Israel. It doesn't make sense to want to live in Israel but to boycott Judaism either.

Basically, everybody wants to make Israel what they want to make it without much regards to the other population, which makes this a Jewish problem.

A Christian laments: So, Jews, you'll let the goyim win after all?

By Stan Goodenough -- November 29, 2005


According to the newspapers here in Israel, Jews are rejoicing because the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies (IFRCRC) has finally agreed to open its doors to the Red Shield (or Star) of David (Magen David Adom), the Israeli organization that offers services equivalent to the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

Ok, so there's a small catch: The Israelis cannot actually use their Red Star of David in this new arrangement, but must agree to a new symbol, a Red Crystal, inside which, for advertising purposes alone, they may now and then insert a small Star of David.

But hey, what's the big deal? I mean, the Israeli organization has been fighting for decades, almost pleading, to be recognized in the same way the Muslim world's Red Crescent Society been. And now, at last, it will be.

The fact that the Jews have to drop the symbol that represents their nation, their people, their history and their land, because the Red Cross and Red Crescent so demand it, well, that's really a small price to pay.

There's not much point in quibbling over a symbol, after all.

And what difference will it make if injured people are taken to hospital in an ambulance with a Red Crystal instead of a Magen David Adom emblazoned on its side?

Watching it speeding by, the Jews can be proud of the fact that once more they fulfilled their calling to be "a light to the nations" by giving in to those nations' demands and not insisting on what is justly, and rightfully, theirs.

Also, these days, the papers here in Israel are full of reports about Jews rejoicing for other, not dissimilar reasons. The majority of Israelis are apparently thrilled at the political revolution that is taking place before their eyes.

Finally they have a new party, a new leader, a new way to vote for. Hope is in the air, a strong leader is soon going to disengage them from the Palestinian Arabs, draw Israel's final borders and so, at long last, win for Israel a place of recognition and acceptance, and perhaps even some praise, in the world.

Ok, so again there's a small catch: To achieve this peace, this acceptance, the Jews cannot actually have the most important and cherished parts of their homeland. They have to let go the cradle of their nationhood, the burial places of their national patriarchs and heroes --Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Rachel, David -- they have to relinquish, for all time, their claims to Hebron and Shechem and Bethel and Bethlehem; the mountains of Samaria, the Judean hills and half of Jerusalem, "the eternal capital of the Jewish people."

But hey, for the sake of peace, this is surely a small price to pay. After all, Hebron, Shechem, the eastern part of Jerusalem -- all these places have many more Arabs than Jews living in them. Most the Jewish population of Israel actually already lives in the coastal plain between Jaffa and Haifa. Most of Israel's industries are located there too.

Surely, for the sake of peace, and in order that the Jews may enjoy the warm embrace of the Gentiles, severing those ancient roots and laying down those ancient claims is a really small price to pay?

And every time the Jews stop to gaze across the new border into Palestine, and remember with fondness, and perhaps even a few tears, the land to which they returned 39 years ago, with such delight and ecstasy after 20 centuries of longing and praying to be back, they will be able to console themselves that, once again, they fulfilled their calling to be or legoyim (a light to the gentiles) by appeasing their enemies and making unprecedented sacrifices to prove to all the world that they are -- and always have been -- serious about making peace.

But do you know what, Jews of Israel -- and those Jews still in exile who so fervently support this way? You may think that in so acquiescing, you are setting a glowing example to the nations of the world.

But as far as these nations are concerned, the last thing they will want to do is emulate you. All you are doing is proving them right in their long-held belief that you are illegitimate, land grabbing, not-to-be-trusted Yids.And, as far as the Muslim world is concerned, your actions only confirm their view of you as a dhimmi nation, fit only to be ruled over by, and subdued under, Islam.

Thus, with the creation of that new Arab state, the Muslims will have tightened the noose around Israel's then scrawny throat at Netanya, between Haifa and Tel Aviv. And, in their openly proclaimed and publicly published declaration of intent, this Muslim world spells out that this Palestinian state will be the most effective weapon and channel the Arabs have ever had to ensure the destruction of Israel.

If you, Jewish people, are so determined to race towards the precipice, ignoring, belittling, even shouting down the warning cries from those few who see the peril and -- with all the history of Jewish-Gentile relations to fuel our fears -- care enough to plead with you to halt this headlong dash towards your destruction, there is very little that we can do but cry out to your God to intervene as drastically as He may need to, to open your eyes and so save you.

Beauty Not in the Eye of the Beholder?

This maxim is a popular one, embraced by most well-to-do people who just want to live and let live. But, I have a problem with it, so I'm going to pick it apart until I can express what that problem is to the best of my ability.

Firstly, we have to understand that the underlying message of this quip is that there can be no label on beauty; nobody can say or decide for others what is beautiful and what is not. For the most part, this is true, because clearly the wide variety of human beings in this planet have different notions of what beauty is, in various countries and even within one country, heck, within families, within one individual!

But that's besides the point. Despite all of the variation within humanity as to the concept of beauty, we find that we are amazingly similar in many respects, perhaps more than the lover of the philosophy that is questioned in the title of this post would like to concede.

Take for example that the overwhelming majority of humanity finds beauty in somebody that loves them. Humans have a deep-seated need, expressed as a powerful desire, to connect with someone and to enjoin their lives together. Now, you can say that some people do not have this need, or seem not to have it, but nevertheless they still engage in forming relationships, usually relationships that last. You can love your parents, your family, your friends, etc, but there is a certain type of love that is only reserved for one type of person, the person who will know you more accurately than any other person in your life, and that person is your spouse; your wife or husband. Putting aside the many social problems that are leading marriage to become a more and more obsolete institution, in this country at least but in others as well, this deeply grounded human urge to connect in such a manner with one individual for the rest of their life, day in and day out, is hard to condition out of us.

This post is not particularly about marriage, but rather, I'm trying to show that beauty is not so much a relative concept as our modernized society tends to portray that it is. Beauty is not just relative, but definitely has an absolute aspect to it.

Ephron ben Zohar -- Ephron son of Zohar

About three thousand years ago, a Hittite man sold a cave in Israel to man named Abraham, which Abraham wanted to own in order to bury his recently-passed wife, Sarah, the matriarch and model for behavior of the Jewish people. The name of the Hittite that sold the cave to Avraham is "Ephron ben Zohar," and he wanted to give it to him for free, but Avraham insisted on paying for it, so Ephron sold it to him for 400 silver shekels. The reason for his insistence on paying for it was so that the people living around him would not contest that it didn't pass into his hands fair and square; Avraham was a known man in his time and place, and he was also quite wealthy. I remember standing in Israel a few years ago in an area, in a Jewish area, in contrast to a "Palestinian area," overlooking the area containing the Cave of Machpela (the previously mentioned cave)and imagined what the Cave actually looked like. Tourists can visit the Cave today in the Palestinian-run area of Chevron (or Hevron).

The patriarch of the Jewish people, Abraham, is also revered as a patriarch by the Muslim people, who value his sincerity and belief in (the One) G-d just as much as Jews do. Palestinians, and perhaps Muslims in general, who emphasize the importance of having total access to sites holy to them (and that nobody else, unless submitting to Muslim rule), see the town of Chevron as a Muslim, but particularly as a Palestinian town. This in part, is due to the fact that the religion of Islam defines all of the patriarchs and matriarchs, and prophets, in the Tanakh ("Old Testament," or "Jewish Bible") as "Muslims." This definition makes partial sense only because the Arabic language defines the word "Muslim" as a "submitter," one that completely submits his or her life to G-d. This submission, or totally putting yourself under G-d's rule, is as well a revered character trait in Judaism as well; the only difference is that Jews are aware that submitting to G-d does not make one a Muslim, otherwise, all the great Jews that I know, rabbi's and their wives and good people in general, are Muslims.

It would be interesting to trace the ideological transition of the site of Machpela from a place of religious significance for Jews to being considered an extremist Jewish outpost in the area of the future Palestinian state. Without doing alot of research on this, or writing a doctorate, I will attempt to trace this transition in very general and brief terms.

Israel itself, during the rule of King Saul, David, and subsequent kings, went through several border changes. In the 7th century Before Common Era, the Assyrians (to the north) invaded the Southern Kingdom. During the 5th century Before Common Era, the Babylonians invaded, and let's just say that the "demographics" of Israel changed; many of the Jews went into exile in Babylon, which geographically, is modern-day Iraq. The monarchy split into the Northern and Southern monarchies and became ruled by different sets of Jewish kings. The North was called "Judah" and the South was called "Israel," respectively named so after the tribes of Israel residing within those areas. The period of the monarchies of Israel was the last time that the Jews had a measure of autonomy in their own land, which is Israel.

As a quick aside, in the cultural sense, why do Jews even believe that Israel is their land? Are there not Jews that live in other countries? The answer is "yes," there are. However, neither Christianity or Islam, for example, believe in a land of origin, and the land is not essentially tied into the focal point of the religion. In other words, both Christianity and Islam revere certain sites, Nazareth and Bethlehem and Mecca and Medina respectively, but Christians do not see Israel as their homeland, and Muslims do not see Saudi Arabia as such. This is related to the fact that both Christianity and Islam believe that the world should adopt those respective religions, which means that its concentration to one place goes against the precepts of those religions. With Judaism, however, the belief is not that all the world needs to accept Judaism, but only a belief in the One G-d, which has certain necessary doctrines, such as His Oneness, but can be adopted and adapted to individual peoples' in their own ways. The focal point of Judaism is the return to Jewish autonomy in their land, where the Temple can be built and Jews' religious duties can be fulfilled. Christianity's doctrines especially, and not Islam's, seem to be rooted in the very destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which is why Christianity acts as an opposing force to the religion of Judaism, trying to negate nearly every central concept about it. It's as if, in Islam's mind, Christianity was the hammer that broke the covenant between the Jews and G-d, and Islam stepped into to takes its place.

Lots of things happened in the next 656 years or so (586 BCE - 70 CE, Roman invasion), and Israel fell under foreign rule once again. Again, lots of land-changing happened under Roman Christian rule as well, with several political forces attempting to gain and regain control of the land. During the 7th century of the Common Era (about 1,300 years ago), some 700 years later, Islam formed as a religion, gained power, and removed the Byzantines (who themselves replaced the Romans). By now, the land and its various sites took on significance for Christians as well, partially who took over sites that were previously Jewish. When the Muslims got there, they had the pleasure of taking over sites that were once Jewish and then became Christian, which in their own minds, these conquests completed the status of these areas and coverted them to Muslim sites. This had deep religious signficance for the Muslims because they viewed their religion as the completed form of both Judaism and Christianity. If we criticize the Iraq war for having ill designs, we are not free from criticizing Islam's political behaviors during that specific time. Sure, it was a long time ago, but history is a continuing continuum, and the fact that it was a long time ago does not detach us from those events. In other words, the very events themselves are locked in time, but their effects are not, and we feel them today; Iraq wasn't Muslim before the spread of Islam, and Jews lived in modern-day Iraq nearly 1,300 years before both Christianity and Islam existed. So if time is of the essence, as it is in Arab culture, or in other words, that time can bound people to a land, Babylon/Iraq is Jewish.

Just an aside; people who hold the anti-war opinion sometimes say that to attack Iraq is to attack the place where civilization began, but for some strange reason it seems that they attach "dawn of civilization" with Islam. One our problems as Americas is that we associate "exotic" with "ancient" and "ancient" with "truth," and while "ancient" and "truth" have a certain correlation, something's exotic status does not make it ancient, and therefore exotic things are not necessarily representative of truth. Just because Muslim culture is older than ours does not make it the dawn of civilization and it does not make it truth. Jewish culture, for one, is far older than Muslim culture (and the basis of it), yet many of the same people that oppose the war believe that Israel should make room for the Palestinians to create their own state; isn't this an example of an older culture having to make room for a newer culture? How is this consistent? It is morally and logically wrong to venerate the exotic and strange just because it is exotic and strange. If Iraq is the dawn of civilization, it's because Abraham, the first Jew, was born in the city of Ur, in Iraq, and he brought monotheism to the world, and monotheism is the dawn of civilization as far as the West is concerned.

In 1948 of the Common Era, Israel was established as a state in the Middle East, some 1,200 years after Muslims arrived on the scene. The Muslims are grounded in a strong tradition of revering their patriarchs and matriarchs, which they have in common with Jews, but as I stated before, they are also grounded in a strong tradition of defining Jewish history as Muslim history, and therefore, the religion of Judaism was essentially doesn't exist, indicating in the Muslim mentality that all lands "previously" belonging to Jews and Judaism were no longer Jewish. They declared that this was the very will of G-d Himself. I will add more later, but Israeli, and then Palestinian nationalism, is essentially how the Cave of Machpela became considered to be a Palestinian site that restricts Jews from visiting or living in. Basically, Machpela, in Chevron, is treated the same way that Muslims treat all areas under their rule in Muslim and Arab countries; outsiders are not really welcome.

The patronizing factoid here is that Islam, as a religious force, places a high importance on its religious sites and demands total freedom in having access to them; anything less is an affront and direct insult to their religious, social, and political sensibilities. This however, especially in the last century or so, and arguably at other times, is not granted to Jews (or Christians), primarily in respects to Palestinian nationalism. In the "Palestinian territories," where bastions of almost complete lack of political order makes room for terrorism that kills Israeli's, Palestinians and poisons everyone involved, where many religious Jewish sites are located, these sites are seen as Muslim sites. This is made possible because the Muslim religion claims a monopoly on Biblical Jewish history, defining every figure in the Jewish narrative as "Muslim" and therefore allowing them to define Jewish holy sites as Muslim holy sites. For this reason, the Cave of Machpela, where Abraham, the first Jew, buried his wife Sarah and then was buried himself by his sons Isaac and Ishmael, is considered a Muslim holy site. Nazareth and Bethlehem, aside from being Jewish sites, are also Christian, but since Jesus was supposedly a Muslim, those sites are considered Muslim and are part of the Umma, which is the worldwide Muslim population.

G-d and Evolution

When most people, at least in America, think about the G-d and evolution debate, if that's what you wanna call it, their mind automatically conjures up this image of a particular religious institution, in America's case, the (Catholic) Church going up against the scientific theories of the theory of evolution. And just like two pit bulls going at each other in a cage, people like to sit back and watch the fight, every once in a while throwing in a wager or a shout. The truth is, however, because it doesn't just involve the Church versus the institution of science. The Church vs. Evolution match doesn't really explain what's going on here, but in reality, humanity is at another one of those junctures in civilization, and the divergent paths are represented by theism (belief in G-d) and atheism.

The November 28th, 2005 issue of Newsweek featured an interesting article about Darwin and "his private views on science and G-d;" it turns out that before delving into the science of biology on his famous trip to the Galapagos Islands, Darwin "planned to enter the ministry."

In this post, I just wanted to point out some interesting things and to share my thoughts on them. The first thing I want to point out is that Darwin, who to some people serves as a guru of sorts, was not the ardent atheist that some point out him out to be. In fact, he went on his expeditions with a Bible at his side, and according to the article, "His own life exemplifies the painful journey from moral certainty to existential doubt that is the defining experience of modernity." The point that I'm trying to make is that the people that see Darwin as an ideologue and enemy of religion miss the fact that his works and research were in large part the works of a man who transitioned from belief in G-d to disbelief, and not that he received some sort of atheistic revelation upon his birth that opened his eyes to the truth. In a similar way, Karl Marx is revered by his modern-day "disciples" as being the sworn enemy of classist power conflict and capitalism, but at the same time ignore that his ideologies were shaped by his being a Jew in Europe, subject to mistreatment and sporadic poverty, and as well as being influenced by the very ideals of Judaism, which desire to see a world where the poor are taken care of by society. Those two are a poignant combination in the creation of Marx's ideology, and it is incredibly ironic that those who claim to know him most have no idea as to his origins or context, and interestingly enough, as a side note, dislike Jews. We must see historical figures in context.

"To a society accustomed to searching for the truth in the pages of the Bible, Darwin introduced the notion of evolution: that the lineages of living things change, diverge and go extinct over time, rather than appear suddenly in immutable form, as Genesis would have it," the article summarizes. Yet Darwin himself is quoted as saying, "One might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends." Here Darwin is giving plausibility to the notion that the abundance of slightly varied species that exist in our world today might have come from "one species" of bird, meaning that birds as such were created and from them came a widely varied form of birds. When referring to the different species of tortoises found on the Galapagos Archipelago, which would indicate that their differences could be explained by their adaptations to the varied environments, the article poses the question, "Did G-d, the supreme intelligence, deign to design distinctive shell patterns for the tortoises of each island?" The answer would be a resounding "yes."

And of course, we can't really get past the notion that although Darwin was eventually dissuaded from belief in G-d, that evolution itself posits the existence of a force of creation, be it morally neutral and disinterested. Could it be that Darwin's theory of evolution was a part and parcel of the struggle of a formerly religious man finding himself with a belief in G-d, yet unable to get a tight grasp on why suffering is so prevalent in this world? Could it be that the theory of evolution, as Darwin explains it, is the "disinterested G-d?" The article says, "To a world taught to see the hand of G-d in every part of Nature, Darwin suggested a different creative force altogether."

"William Howarth, an environmental historian who teaches a course at Princeton called 'Darwin in Our Time,' dates Darwin's doubts about Christianity to his encounters with slave-owning Christians - some of them no doubt citing Scripture as justification - which deeply offended Darwin, an ardent abolitionist." I would add, on my own, that not only would he have been offended as an "ardent abolitionist," but very likely due to his belief in that Scripture, much like a Muslim who ardently opposes the suicide bomber's claim that the Q'uran allows the killing of political opponents.

For instance, "Darwin was troubled by theodicy, the problem of evil; how could a benevolent and omnipotent G-d permit so much suffering in the world h(H)e created?" The truth is that many believers are troubled by the same issue. We are free beings, and if a morally neutral, yet creative, force makes more sense to us in a world of pain, suffering, and strife than a G-d who knows and cares, then we are free to invent one. While not undermining Darwin's pain, much of which was caused by his ten-year old daughter, Annie, who died from tuberculosis in 1851, we can create that god.

Interestingly, "In mainstream Christian seminaries the dominant view according to Holmes Rolston III, a philosopher at Colorado State University and author of 'Genes, Genesis, and G-d,' is that the Biblical creation story is a poetic version of the scientific account, with vegetation and creatures of the sea and land emerging in the same basic order. In this interpretation, G-d gives h(H)is creation a degree of autonomy to develop on its own." Rolston points to Genesis 1:11, where G-d, after creating the heavens and the Earth, says, 'Let the Earth put forth vegetation..." "[But] the account describes a G-d who opens up possibilities in which creatures are generated in an Earth that has these rich capacities."

Furthermore, the writer of the article, Jerry Adler, submits the opinion that human perception of G-d could be a by-product related to a certain point in the development
of the human brain, which biologically speaking, was only made possible at that certain point. If we think about this a bit further, we can come to the empirical standpoint that simpler organisms, such as bacteria, do not have a concept of self, and can say that as an organism becomes more developed and intricate, it eventually forms this perception of self. Once that occurs, the creature can then try to focus on this state of existence, which then allows it to focus on its relationship with beings external to it, those who surround it. Finally, it is able to perceive a pervasive existence that lingers externally to both it and to the other beings; this is G-d.

We know that before Judaism became a religion, people practiced various forms of polytheism. The Talmud (Jewish Oral Law) derives that before this, however, that these people actually perceived and believed in one Being that was defined by complete oneness, but eventually "broke It down" into several. For example, the first generation believed that the One existed, the second believed that they could honor It by honoring its creations, and the third believed that they could cease to direct honor towards It, and began to worship Its creations. Thinking about this, we can conclude that this is precisely the way in which the belief in several deities began; each deity marked and represented a variant force of nature, be it fire, fertility, or death. The traditionally-used analogy is that of light, which appears to the human eye as white light, and when broken by water, for example, appears a wide array of colors, which are pleasing to the eye. Continuing the analogy, each varying color then, is a deity, and the white light, of course, is G-d. This is why deities are so "colorful" and animated, interesting, and alluring; they are more pleasing to the eye than a mere white. Their downfall, however, is that they are a mere representation of the truth, a figment.

The point is that, once humanity was able to perceive this externality, it understood its oneness, but eventually, due to the overwhelming varying nature of nature itself, made the honest mistake of believing that there was an abundance of spiritual existences (or deities) paralleling the abundant existences of nature. Judaism, to compare and contrast, believes that all of the Earth's elements are not separate entities, but invisibly connected, ultimately indicating the oneness of spiritual existence; the One G-d. All, then, is a by-product of this Oneness; Heaven and Earth, and all humanity. Some of these people even believed that there was a father or mother deity whom created all the rest, which is consistent with the belief of the perception of One. According to this view, our biological development itself led to our belief in G-d, and if the theory of evolution that a species survives or dies out according to the usefulness or uselessness of characteristics that it possesses is correct, then the human ablility to perceive G-d is a sign of our evolved state.

*** There is an excellent book about this very topic written by a Jew named "Gerard Schroeder," and it is titled "The Science of G-d." Don't take my word for it, but it is amazing and incredibly rich in acclaimed scientific discoveries and traditional Jewish texts, such as Genesis and the Sage, Nachman(ides), or the "Ramban."

"Yes" to Noah, "No" to Jesus... --

Today I visted my old place of work to buy some food to put into my digestive tract. There I ran into my old manager, a devout Christian, while she was loading some ice cream into the fridge in the aisle nearest the wall in the back. I said "howdy" she said "hi." As usual, the conversation led to religion, I'm not exactly sure how this time. She told me that the Gentiles were grafted into the Covenant and that it wasn't just us anymore. If I wasn't polite, and if she would listen, I would have said that the Gentiles weren't grafted into the Covenant, but rather that they smacked the living daylights out of us with the backside of a shovel and yanked it from us, hehe! All they had to do was ask, I mean, maybe we would have said, "yes." Afterall, the Jews spoke about G-d for thousands of years sending "golden invitations" before some Gentiles finally decided to get themselves some G-d. And seriously, there's enough of Him to go around!

The truth is that Christians don't need Jesus anymore than they need Christina Aguilera; who they really need is Noah.

If you don't already know, long before the television show "Survivor," G-d chose Noah and his family to be the only survivors on Earth after the flood; and from them, the entire world was repopulated. This was a Covenant that G-d established with Noah and his family, who guess what, are the forefathers and foremothers of every single nation in the world. This includes, guess who, Jews and Gentiles alike.

Now Noah, the modest and righteous fellow that he was, despite some short-comings, had three pretty good sons; Shem, Ham, and Yafet. As it turns out, from Shem descended Abraham, with whom G-d also made a Covenant. But before this Covenant was made, G-d made a Covenant with every single nation of the world and with every single individual from those nations; only later was the Covenant with honest Abe made. Putting this into context, Jesus is also a descendant of Abraham, and therefore of Shem, making himself a recipient of that Covenant that G-d made with the Jews at Mt. Sinai. Christians like to say that they were grafted into the Covenant of the Jews through Jesus (I think that Paul coined this notion, not even Jesus), but in reality, they were "grafted" into the Covenant before it was even made with the Jews; chew on that one! If we wanted to, we might even be able to say that it was the Jews who were grafted onto the original covenant that G-d made with Noah; chew on that one a bit too! Maybe we are the branch and the Gentiles are the trunk? Hmmm, keep chewing and you'll eventually blow a bubble. Wait, does that actually make sense? Yes, it does.

Sent to me by my Cousin Adam, Hahaha... --
Contact author at cheesyswine@whodog.net

Left-wing Judeo-Christians, also known more commonly as messianic-Jews, or recently dubbed, Yids for Yashka, have taken monumental steps in their authentic piety. Straight from the heart of the bible-belt, in the capital of Oklahoma, a group of kippah donning, mezuzah kissing, Hebrew hollering Christians have written a new book of dietary laws. Of their interesting revelations, they argue that if a kosher animal such as a cow, could be made unkosher when butchered or later in the process of elaboration, that an unkosher animal, such as a pig, could surely be made kosher.

The logic behind this seemingly superficial argument lies at the depths of another current scientific debate; genetically modified organisms. Scientists in the Netherlands, some of which participated in the creation of the infamous Dolly, have stated that they could create a swine that indeed "Chews its Cud."

These Midwest fanatics, who are outcasts of both Judaism and Christianity, interpret passages from the Torah (The Old Testament), in a way that would not prohibit the ingestion of this hybrid marvel of modern science, due to its possession of split hooves and its knack for cud grubbing.

Despite what sounds like a happy ending for Hasidim who can now chow down on bacon-covered latkes this year at Hanukkah, one small obstacle has smashed all their hopes for the time being. Although this wacky sect of Christians, acting like Jews, spend countless hours learning Hebrew, studying Halacha (Jewish law), and observing daily rituals, they have failed to produce a qualified kosher butcher.

The following ad was sent to Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn, NY: Observant Jews in Oklahoma City searching for shochet. (yada yada yada)
Contact Information: Yehuda Christiansen
Spiritual Leader of Meshichistic community

Needless to say, no self-respecting Rabbi would preform the bloody sin of slaughtering a pig, leaving the Yids for Yashka swineless and mindless. As a plea to all the readers out there: If you or anyone you know is a certified Shochet, either by a recognized Jewish institution or by the Vatican, please help these hungry souls find some real pork lovin'.

The Abuse of Nature


Oh marijuana, 'tis so stupid, sayeth it with me.

I was watching the news the other day and saw that a guy and his father here in Tucson were busted for basically turning their house in a marijuana factory. Seriously, they showed a diagram from a bird's eye view of the house and it was like watching a Cheech and Chong movie and I began to chuckle as I watched it.

As I saw the picture of the man and his father on the screen, I realized that marijuana, like many other chemical substances, appeals to the basest primal urge in man, to alter his state of consciousness through chemical intervention.
The appeal is broad, obvious, and universal; there is a strong human desire to escape this world, even if just for a short while -- enter marijuana. When I saw their pictures on the screen, I got an image in my mind of two erratic homo-erecti jumping around and screaming while under the influence of a chemical that they extracted from a plant, which could have been used for a series of other things, or perhaps was not intended to be used for anything. The only is that these two monkeys were human beings; let THEM serve as a testament to our true nature as animals, I won't take any part in it. Does it occur to anyone that the influence that a drug has on the mind is a result of the nervous systems losing control, freaking out, and trying to get a grasp on what just happened? If you introduced an electrical equivalent of a drug into a computer, it would shut down temporarily; hardly an indication of enhancement.

The point is this; pot, for some odd reason, has become a pillar of the pseudo-free- thinkers association, the people that advocate for marijuana.

I just don't get it, what can be so positive about marijuana that it needs a fan base?

Some people say that marijuana is good for cataracts, but unless you are eighthy years old and are living the last years of your life, doctors won't be rolling prescription doobies (spelling?) for you while listening to Bob Marley. So scratch that one.

Then there's the brilliant argument that since the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp, somehow smoking marijuana is an inherent part of being a free American. There is no connection. News to you chaps, had the framers of the Constitution been alive today, they probably would have differed with you on many points considering marijuana. I don't care what Phish says, you can't get high smoking hemp. Scratch that one.

Peter Tosh in "Legalize It" mentions that birds eat it. I guess this somehow implies that smoking marijuana is natural; the only problem is that birds eat it, they eat it as part of their diet to survive. If you were stuck on an island that only had marijuana plants, then yes, I would advocate eating it. Isn't it funny, you'd get the munchies and what would you eat? MORE MARIJUANA! Oh, that Peter Tosh has made a pot-head out of me! Scratch that one.

He also mentions that doctors and lawyers smoke it. I recall my mom asking me when I was younger if all my friends jumped off a cliff, would I? Listen to Mom, unless she tells you smoke pot. Scratch that one (thanks Mom).

It also reminds me of the ethics professor that was caught having an affair with a student. When asked how he could do such a thing, being an ethics professor, he responded, "I only teach it, I don't need to practice it." This is just a paraphrase. Some doctors and lawyers also cheat on their wives or husbands or get busted for child-porn, so we should do that too? Scratch that one, I don't care what doctors or lawyers do, unless they provide me with needed organs or defend my a55.

Then you have the Bob Marley argument, which comes with the reggae culture. In reality, the reggae culture is pretty socially conscious, but the Marley afficionados who get all kinds of high on the ganja while relaxing to "Rastaman Vibration" can't be socially conscious because they aren't even conscious half the time! I myself am a real Marley fan, especially in high school, but was never into the pot. Try getting into what Bob Marley was saying without filling your lungs with cannabis particles. Do you get all wigged out on heroin because the lead-singer of Stone Temple Pilots did?

The argument that makes alot of sense, and I am shocked by this one because it actaully relates to justice, is that in the early 1900's, the American government outlawed marijuana on the basis that it was associated as being a Mexican trade. This led to a culture of "marijuana demonization," which was really racially motivated, and led to movies such as "Reefer Madness" and other media explaining the overt dangers of the drug. Clearly, it was wrong on the count of racism, but those that bring it up think that somehow their desire for social consciousness for Mexican-Americans in the early 1900's will justify their desire to get high. If you wanna get high, get high, just admit that it makes you feel good, and don't beat around the bush (or the plant). How many Mexican-Americans oppose the usage of marijuana and its legalization?

And hey, I'm an Orthodox Jew, so I can't leave out the G-d argument. This is actually an argument against it. A human can exist in a state closer to G-d by keeping their mind pure. In reality, mind-altering drugs are just one form of obstruction, or "klippah," which means "shell." Of course, it's not limited to drugs; some other obstructions are anger and violence, over-indulgence, misuse of sexual intimacy, disorder, and any form of addiction.

The spiritual argument FOR marijuana, and yes, there is one, is quite unfounded; it states that the Cohanim (the Priestly caste of the Levites) burned marijuana in the Holy of Holies to increase their spiritual communion with G-d. This however, is a bizarre notion because the Torah, with its separation between pure and impure things, is the source of this truth. Furthermore, the Talmud identifies the types of spices that were burned during this ceremony, which were present for a good smell (one of them was honey). So scratch that one.

Tohu va'Vohu

This blog is dedicated to a comical depiction of the silly forms of manipulation that are a part of the realm of conversion tactics.

OK, the first ones that I need to talk about are about those missionaries and "Jews for Jesus" that try to get Jews to come over to the "light side." In the past couple of years, maybe even the last decade, Christian missionaries have adopted Jewish terminology, some religious, some cultural, to pull Jews over into the vortex of Christianity, like sheep to the water. However, it turns out like sheep to the slaughter, but in the spiritual sense - because the water is Torah.

One of the main tactics is to try to make alienated Jews, and those with limited Jewish educational backgrounds, feel comfortable in the realm of Christianity by using Jewish and Hebrew words, such as “Brit Chadasha,” (New Covenant) and the Hebrew versions of the names of the Gospels; “Matityahu” for "Matthew" and “Yochanan” for "John," for example, and my personal favorite, “Yeshua” for “Jesus.” I wonder when they will start using my inventions; “Aveirah Rishonah” (Original Sin), “Nolad be'Teshuva” (Born Again), the "Lo-Meshiach" (anti-Christ) and “Esh Tamid” (Eternal Hell).

One that I find particularly funny is the use of “Yiddishisms,” Judaic slang usually associated with Hebraic culture, such as the notorious bagels and lox, which will accompany one well in a place where the soul will have an eternal fire by which to bake them; time to stock up on kosher marshmallows. The Israelites that eat Islamic foods are safe from these missionaries because they don't understand Yiddishisms. Therefore, I propose that a group of Christian Arabs disband into the Levant armed with Britot Chadashot in Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Arabicisms, the Islamic version of Yiddishisms.

And who says that only those who believe in the Triune god be limited to missionari'ism? After the "New Israelites" put down the cross and carried the sword, they eventually put down the sword and picked up the pen, and I believe that our Mohammedan friends are ripe for the picking as well.

For example, I want to introduce some new terms into the conversion lexicon. For example, Muslims can try to convince Christians as to the truth of Islam by presenting themselves as “Christians for Muhammad,” or “Infidels for Islam,” which can apply to Jews, Sabians, polytheists, and other kuffar, or infidels. Christians can use some of these ideas for new terms, such as “Kuffar for Christ,” a Christian counter-missionary group targeting Muslim missionaries to see the truth of Christian missionary work, and in turn, counter-counter missionary Muslim groups operating under the name “Kuffar for Christ, the Muslim,” which will try to get Muslims that were originally trying to get converts, became Christian missionaries, and to re-accept the yoke of Islam. Their work can be found in the pamphlet, “Jesus, the Hebrew Christian Israelite Jew Messiah who believed in the Final Prophet, Muhammad,” and entails, with fiery conviction as to the truth of Islam, their journeys.

I must say that my personally favorite group is "Goyim for G-d," ironically started by a Noachide named Noach in Newport Beach, California.

There are also the Eastern movements, with groups such as "Hindu's for Hashem," and "Buddhists for 'Baruch Ata'."

I personally have stopped calling myself an Orthodox Jew and have joined the Jewish missionary group that I consider to be the term that defines me the best, “Muslimun ila Musa,” (Muslims for Moses) which was started by Yussuf al-Qutb, the Chassidic Jew that converted to Islam, denounced Israel, supported Chamas, and then one day saw a Passover Seder held by “Jews for Jesus” and was inspired by the truth of Judaism, causing him to return to a Torah-observant lifestyle.

"Go and Show the Zionists..." --

Ynet...


Iranian state television has broadcast a cartoon that glorifies suicide bombings against Israelis, depicting a young boy blowing himself up after being told, "go and show the Zionists how brave and heroic are the children of Palestine," the London-based Telegraph reported.



According to the report, the cartoon, one of a series shown by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on "Jerusalem Day" nine days ago, presents the actions of a boy who commits suicide to strike back against Israelis as a noble example for children to follow.


The Telegraph says the cartoon appears to be professionally produced and more graphic than previous Iranian propaganda aimed at children, adding that the cartoon appears to be part of a campaign led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to elevate the issue of Israel's annihilation.


At the start of the 10-minute animated film, translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), Abd al-Rahman, a Palestinian youth, watches as Israeli soldiers murder his family.


They are depicted laughing as they strike his mother in the face with a rifle and then shoot his father, whose blood splashes the oranges on the trees he cultivated.



Abd consoles his sister and weeps, declaring: "Oh God, I must take revenge upon these bloodthirsty aggressors, who murdered my father, mother and brother." His cousin Karim introduces him to a neighbor's son, Jassem, who is a member of a "resistance group."



Jassem instructs the boys to take part in an attack against Israeli
soldiers, applauding their "deep faith" and telling them that they "may become martyrs".



Abd's aunt bids the boys a tearful farewell. "God willing, you'll be
successful," she says. "Go, my children. Go and show the Zionists how brave and heroic are the children of Palestine."


As he lies in wait, Abd ties a string of grenades around his waist.
The convoy approaches and the cartoon shows satanic-faced Israeli soldiers sitting in a lorry around an ammunition box decorated with a Star of David.



Abd shouts, "I place my trust in God. Allah Akbar," pulls the
grenade pins and leaps onto the lorry. When the smoke clears, the
bodies of Abd, the Israeli troops and the attackers are strewn
around the road.



A young Palestinian boy then walks over to Abd's body, takes his
bloodstained keffiyeh head-dress, drapes it over his own shoulders
and walks off into the sunset.


'Gory stuff'



The Telegraph quoted Dan Shaham, a spokesman for the Israeli embassy
in London, as saying "the phenomenon of inciting children to commit suicide attacks is revolting. It corrupts young minds and makes sure conflict continues. President Ahmadinejad is not only dangerous in the here-and-now but the Iranian extremist ideology is affecting future generations. Something needs to be done today."



Ali Ansari, an Iranian analyst at St Andrew's University, told the
Telegraph that the cartoon was "gory stuff" and different from previous anti-Israeli propaganda.


"It's interesting they've gone to these lengths to develop a cartoon like this that is obviously directed towards kids.

"Anti-Zionism is one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic
republic. But Ahmadinejad's comments went beyond the standard ideological diet, because by implication they applauded suicide bombers and condemned anyone who makes peace with Israel."

The Wonders of Tzitzit

If you're going to read this, don't expect anything from on par with Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's short essay on tzitzit, although I do recommend that you read anything by him, specifically his anthologies. Instead, I intend to list the many wonders of tzitzit and why it is absolutely magnificient to wear them.

1) You can always bust out in an impression of Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof, and if your impression is less than good, at least you are wearing tzitzit.

2) They look good.

3) My friend Danny said that I look like the reincarnation of Matisyahu, which is funny because he's alive.

4) They remind you of your obligation to G-d.

Fallacies --

Let’s talk about fallacies, a word that I learned in a logic class that I took a while back. The class was very good, we learned how to think. Fallacies are statements that are logically sound but not necessarily true. For example, I can say that “The 6-Day War is the cause of Palestinian suffering.” If one were to hear this statement and then be shown pictures of places where Palestinians live, they might come to the conclusion that this is true without a doubt. This statement is a good example of a fallacy because it can be shown that Palestinian suffering occurred due to the 6-Day War, i.e., the War occurred and then suffering occurred. However, it can also be shown that Jordan, Egypt, and Syria started the War, and when they did, they did not have the fate of the Palestinians in mind and therefore they are also implicated in the suffering of the Palestinians. In other words, the 6-Day War led to Palestinian suffering, but the Arab attack on Israel led to the 6-Day War. The original statement cannot be said to be false, but it can be said to be omitting an important piece of information, which is just one type of fallacy out of many.

The fallacies that I want to discuss in this post are those that I have noticed in my life pertaining to Christian attitudes towards Judaism. I wouldn’t say much about them if it wasn’t for the fact that many of these attitudes completely contradict what I know to be true about Judaism through my experience living as one. As we can see from the original example, fallacies can be very damaging because they shape perceptions into the desired form, and much of the time, people whose perceptions are already (mis)shaped advance those same fallacies. Many of them are made and advanced not because they are necessarily true, but because many of them, if they were true, would necessitate and justify Christianity, and since Christianity stands on many of the fallacies that it has produced about Judaism, it must treat them as the G-d – given truth.

Before I go on, it must be said that one type of fallacy is stating a statement as if it were purely true and not stopping to consider or attempt to demonstrate if that statement truly is true. For example, I said that “Christianity stands on many of the fallacies that it has produced about Judaism,” which is a fallacy itself. Of course, this doesn’t mean that it’s not true. It’s a fallacy because I’m assuming that those specific pillars of Christianity are misrepresentative of Judaism, but it might be that some of them are accurate depictions. To show that it’s not a fallacy, I’ll have to show that those statements are not entirely true.

My friend Arielle has a text book for one of her religion classes, in which I found several fallacies about Judaism. The title of the book, authored by Gustavo Gutierrez, is “On Job; G-d – talk and the Suffering of the Innocent.” The introduction, to put it kindly, is chock full of fallacies; none new, but persistent. In the introduction, with the subtitle “Revelation and Theological Method,” Gutierrez writes, “The point I have just made leads me to discuss two connections as I begin these pages on talk about G-d. 1) The first is the relationship between revelation and gratuitousness. Christ reveals that the Father who sent him on a universal mission of G-d is love.” This statement is saying two things. The word “gratuitousness” also means “grace,” which is the primary Divine characteristic that Christianity, accredited to their belief in Jesus’ teachings, attribute to G-d. The first thing, therefore, is that “revelation and gratuitousness” refers to Jesus’ revelation of
G-d’s grace, of course, which he revealed through himself. In a matter of speaking, it was G-d then that revealed grace. This is the way it can be viewed portraying the relationship of revelation and grace within the scope of Christianity.

The relationship that Gutierrez speaks about can also be as having another meaning, and that is that “revelation” refers to G-d’s revelation of His instruction, the Torah, in what Christian’s call “Old Testament,” and “gratuitousness” referring to His grace, takes the place of revelation; and this is the New Testament. The “relationship” that he refers to, and not so very subtly, is of replacement, also known as “supersessionism,” in which one religion replaces another. “The revelation assigns a privileged place to the simple and the despised, as Jesus made clear; ‘I thank thee, Father, L-rd of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will’ (Matt. 11:25-26).” (Gutierrez) The fallacy exists due to the belief that G-d possesses unconditional love for all humanity, which Christianity goes to great lengths to prove by contrasting Judaism’s supposed belief that G-d only loves and cares about the Jews. Therefore, if G-d is a kind and unconditionally loving G-d and chooses all, then Gutierrez’s statement that “The revelation assigns a privileged place to the simple and the despised, as Jesus made clear…” goes against the very nature that Christians try to emphasize about Christianity, the teaching that they attribute to Jesus himself, which was G-d’s “gracious will.”