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The Devil Must be Laughing
Miscelenouos ideas
Current History
The Mad Islam and NazismThe Bill of RightsHistory
Now I understandPersonal
About MyselfAre My Views UniquePolitical action
What Could Actually Be DoneJewish EducationJewish Education 2|
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| Survival of the Jewish State and Autonomy |
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| My parallel Hebrew site is http://city.walla.co.il/zatlas/index.html . I still have technical problems with Hebrew, so that site is incomplete. The book of Judges describes the political situation of the Israelites as a cycle that repeats itself many times. In that cycle, the Israelites forget G-od and forsake him for (usually, as it was until recently) another deity de jour. G-od then sends some enemy to punish them. Once the Israelites repent and call upon G-od as their only savior, He sends them a righteous leader to lead them against the enemy and restore their well being. The picture got more complicated in the period of the two kingdoms. The struggle between G-od’s worshipers, lead by the prophets and the idol (Ba’al) worshipers intensified. The prophets also discussed social injustice issues in addition to the idol-worshipping problem. The prophets did not manage to get through to the peoples' hearts. The net historical result was the destruction of the Israelite kingdoms and the loss of their territorial autonomy. In the time of the first exile and the second temple era, prophecy ultimately vanished and disappeared. We do not have anymore any direct divine guide as it was in the time of the prophets. It means that even those who care to listen do not have any way to know for sure what's wrong! We have to figure it ourselves. The problem is not to find some type of sin that some group is committing and reprimand them. The problem is to point to the real shortcoming of the whole generation and repent it. Only then could we unite and ask G-od to find us worthy enough in order to help us fight against the enemy within and the enemies outside. And only then, when we are worthy in the eyes of G-od, could we point to the obvious sinners who usually refuse to join the rest of us and choose, in addition to their sins, to join our enemies. This was the case, for example, in the time of the Hasmoneans. Most people felt it was convenient to either follow the helenized leadership, or to ignore their mischievous behavior altogether. Only when this helenized leadership began to enforce their policies, did the priest Mathithyahu decide to ask the people to actually fight against the helenization policies. It is important to point that Mathithyahu did not call upon the people to observe Shabbath or to eat kosher, he only call them in the general form "Who is for G-od, join me". Also the prophet Elijah when he struggles with the Ba'al prophets on Mt. Carmel, does not ask the people to observe Shabbath and eat kosher. He asks them (1 Kings 18:21) "How long halt ye between two opinions? ..." the people have to decide who is the real god and follow him. Today, also, nobody could check what one eats in his home but everyone has to decide who is G-od! It is pretty easy to point to today’s obvious sins. The Torah tells us not to follow the abominations of the nations. The Torah and the prophets also define abomination in very clear terms. Yet, there are groups within the Jewish people who promote abominable behavior. These happened to be the same groups who seem to hate other groups within the Jewish people while expressing love to the enemies. And above all, these happen to be the same groups who claim (G-od forbid) that there is no G-od whatsoever. The Torah prophesizes in Ha'azinu that this will happen. [We just have not understood this prophecy until now, as we have never yet encountered such a situation that the people forsook G-od in favor of ‘not god’. Usually, as I’d said people would abandon G-od for another deity]. The verse says there (Deuteronomy 32:21): "They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those, which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a cruel nation." [I use the king James translation except that I used the words 'cruel nation' which are closer to the original Hebrew better than 'foolish nation'] These groups within the Jewish people that promote such abominations do not believe in G-od or in any other deity. They say so up front! So, as a punishment G-od sends ‘not a people’, something that did not exist as a nation only eighty years ago. And this ‘not a people’ are cruel as we all can see now! The obvious sin and sinners are known, but what is then the sin or short sighting of all of us, that because of it we may not unite and overcome the wicked people and the enemy? I believe that the answer is the notion of 'kohi ve-otzem yadi', 'my might and the strength of my hand did all that for me'. I want first to declare that I do not say that about any one particular group. No, it is all of us! The secular Zionists were always blamed for taking that notion and forsaking G-od. They did it, for example, when they won a series of wars between 1948 and 1967. And they did it again when they tried to achieve peace with their enemies in this world terms only; Peace with their sworn enemy but not with G-od; Peace with an enemy that swore to commit genocide against them, but not with the rest of the Jewish people; Peace that they would (so they had believed) achieve with their strength an the might of their hands. How sad for all of us is that neither the result of those victorious wars, nor the peace are in our hands anymore! But let's look at the religious people. When I talk with ordinary modern orthodox people, I hear that the reason for the problems in Israel is that the Israeli government made too many concessions and is perceived as very weak. I hear from important Rabbis “thanks G-od that we have an army.” (G-od is mentioned in a similar manner in the Israeli Declaration of Independence, once the declaration talks about “Rock of Israel” and then one of the Rabbis signed ‘B”H’ and than his name… he signed his name with the help of G-od) When I try to point that maybe the strength of the Arabs is because of our sins and it is G-od's way to tell us something, I get blank faces. (I get the argument that after the holocaust people trust more a worldly force. It take me some time to explain that I do not talk about dissolving the army but about calling upon G-od, if I at all manage to explain!) On the other extreme side of the orthodoxy, we find those who have said all the time that we should not rebel against the nations and should not have tried to rebuild the state of Israel with our own might and strength. But they are also not true to their own philosophy! We see them actively support the enemy in order to bring with their own might and strength the downfall of Zionism. The Talmud teaches us that "Everything is under the control of G-od, except of the fear of G-od". The only thing that we are really permitted to do in this world with our own might and strength is to enhance our fear of G-od. We, all of us, should resort to our forefathers’ ways. We should repent this notion of 'kohi ve-otzem yadi' and bring G-od back to his world so to speak. No, we should bring G-od back to us! We should understand here and now that G-od is telling us something by sending us such cruel enemies, one after the other in the last seventy years. We may differ politically in whether we think we should actively fight, or expect a miracle, but without understanding that it is not our might and strength we will not succeed. This Webpage and all of its content are copyrighted material. My material within it is copyrighted to me. Copyright © 2000, Ze'ev Atlas |
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