The Greek playwrite, Euripides (484- 406 BCE), is credited with the observation: 'Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad,' although I have found one version that is more acceptable for us monotheists, '"Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of their senses."
Hopefully, our fate will no be that drastic but the collective insanity is certainly deepening. Hamas is raining down rockets, the Americans are rehabilitating them and we are merrily assunming that Sjaron's retreat will stop them. No, it gets better. A book just appeared at Israel's annual Book Week (my favorite event of the year), that documents how Sharon's lawyer,.Dov Weisglass, thought up the Gaza plan in order to keep Sharon and Sons out of jail. This, and the country is buying it.
Euripides was right.
I have the thorazine ready.But the patient has to admit there is a problem.
ReplyDeleteI think OYSVURF is on to something, Jews have shown these tendencies for a long time. During the Bayit Sheni period, we showed the whole world that we are not capable of ruling ourselves. Presumably, the 2000 year galut was supposed to rid us of the bad habits we developed during that period that brought about the destruction. Bar Kochba had some success in uniting everyone, but it wasn't enough. For awhile in the recent past it seemed that we learned the lesson, but now, all the galut sickness is returning to the ruling classes.
ReplyDeleteI recommend Amos Elon's book "The Pity of It All" (history of the assimilated German Jews 1743-1933). He shows how Jews who disconnect themselves from their roots, their people, their Torah end up in a bad state, alienated or following false ideologies like radical German nationalism (e.g. Buber [?!], Hermann Cohen) which ends up turning on them.
I also recomment General Dmitri Volkogonov's book "Lenin: A New Biography" showing how an atheist ideology turns into a corrupt monstrosity--and we must remember that the founders of modern Israel were all influenced heavily by Marx and somewhat by Lenin. Thus, the current crisis caused by the moral and ethical collapse of the ruling clique is no surprise and should have been anticipated, as indeed it was by Rav Kook.