Uncommon ground
LAURA BEN-DAVID, THE JERUSALEM POST
Jan. 14, 2006
Neveh Daniel is an incredible place to live. Situated 1,000 meters above sea level in the beautiful Judean Hills, it has lovely red-tile-roofed homes with panoramic views of Jordan to the east, Hebron to the south, the Mediterranean to the west and Jerusalem to the north. Its sunrises and sunsets are almost as unparalleled as the fog it is famous for, which often blocks them. It is populated by amazing people whose first concern is for "the next guy."
Thus it was with shock to learn of our neighbors' plight, and our utter inability to do anything about it. On Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the order to evacuate was received by residents of Neveh Daniel North, known as Sdeh Boaz, more than 100 soldiers and police officers, with bulldozers, converged on the community with the intent of destroying a new home, the foundation for another home and a stable to hold this gentle community's horses and donkeys.
The crime? Why, being there, of course. Though the land was bought and paid for by Jews even before 1948, ownership and legality apparently have no bearing on these decisions. Jews and Arabs have been in a land-grabbing competition in Israel for years. This is nothing new, and we are all guilty of it. But, for some reason, only Jews keep on being expelled.
I LEFT work in a rush after a distraught Lexi, my 14-year-old, called to tell me what had occurred at Sdeh Boaz, she having witnessed it all. As I approached Neveh Daniel I saw a convoy of police and army vehicles at the road leading up to the neighborhood. Tears welled up in my eyes as I realized why they were there.
I unconsciously flashed back to events we had enjoyed at Sdeh Boaz since our aliya three years ago: from our first Tu B'Shevat, when we joined our community in planting trees, to this past Rosh Hashana, when I brought several families to a natural spring at Sdeh Boaz for the tashlich ceremony.
I arrived home and did all I could to comfort my distraught children. Lexi not only saw what had happened but was knocked down and slightly injured in the violence that ensued. She reported that she had been trying to get into Sdeh Boaz, and found the way blocked by several policemen.
She was traumatized when she watched an Israeli bulldozer raze an Israeli home and stable. This gentle, eco-friendly neighborhood of secular and religious Jews living in harmony in the beautiful Judean hills is just a 10-minute walk from my house and a 10-minute drive from Jerusalem.
My 16-year-old, Shira, had been there earlier. Both girls went in the true spirit of Neveh Daniel - to do what they could to prevent a bad thing happening. But what could teenage girls do against an army? What could 250 neighbors and supporters do against their own soldiers and police?
Unfortunately, the soldiers and police had no such reservations. A violent day ensued, with youths being lifted into the air and thrown to the rocky ground; one boy was thrown against a wall so hard that he began bleeding heavily from his head. Another was so violently handled that it is likely his leg was broken.
In fact, tear gas was used on non-violent kids who were in a house trying to prevent its demolition. In all, 12 youths were injured and 11 were arrested.
I am embarrassed to report all this. It should never have happened. Around this time hail started raining down, pelting people. Girls burst into tears as one despondently remarked that it was the heavens crying. I would not be surprised.
For me, the saddest moment of the day was when my sons, 11-year-old Eitan and nine-year-old Ezra, both extremely anxious, wanted to know if the soldiers might one day destroy our home. What could I say? I hope it will never happen. I don't think it will happen. But after the terrible evictions this summer I cannot be certain of anything. The best I could do was hug them and tell them that God only gives people what they can handle.
Life is challenging enough without imposing greater difficulties upon ourselves. Why would we do this to ourselves as a nation? Do we need to have people bombing us in order to remain united? Isn't it possible for us to look out for each other instead of tearing out our souls to appease others? Perhaps the rest of our precious country could look to places like Neveh Daniel and Sdeh Boaz as examples, both of caring one for another and of Jews of diverse backgrounds living in harmony together.
Israel, please don't make an example of Sdeh Boaz; let Sdeh Boaz set an example for you.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Friday, January 13, 2006
Likud Post-Mortem
Ben Chorin, our local member of the Likud Central Committee, has a good update on last night's results.
Overall, I agree with his evaluation that it was a good night for the Likud (of which I am a member). Most of those elected are honest, bright, devoted and not radicals (though, that won't prevent the Press from tarring them as undistinguished fanatics). I was especially pleased to see that Miki Eitan (a superb parlementarian), Yuval Steinitz, Natan Scharansky and Yuli Edelstein were placed high on the list. Now Bibi has to do his job. Despite what the pundits say, he has a very good shot at forming the next government. See the ( a bit eery ) prophecy by Yoav Yitzhak (a first rate investigative reporter), published before the Prime Minister's massive stroke.
Overall, I agree with his evaluation that it was a good night for the Likud (of which I am a member). Most of those elected are honest, bright, devoted and not radicals (though, that won't prevent the Press from tarring them as undistinguished fanatics). I was especially pleased to see that Miki Eitan (a superb parlementarian), Yuval Steinitz, Natan Scharansky and Yuli Edelstein were placed high on the list. Now Bibi has to do his job. Despite what the pundits say, he has a very good shot at forming the next government. See the ( a bit eery ) prophecy by Yoav Yitzhak (a first rate investigative reporter), published before the Prime Minister's massive stroke.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
New Features
In response to a number of requests, I have added links to whatever articles of mine are on-line. In addition, I've linked to my university Bibliography. Hopefully, I will soon upload copies of all of my academic publications at my Bar Ilan website. Stay tuned.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Pray for Ariel ben Vera
Someone asked why I haven't posted about the Prime Minister's stroke.
First, I've been out with the flu for a few days.
Second, I thought that Ben Chorin had offered the best comment. No matter what Sharon did (and anyone who reads this blog knows exactly what I think of his present policies), he still deserves our prayers as a person, as a Jew and as one who has, on more than one occasion, saved this country when every one else counted us down and out.
So: Tehillim 6 and 130 for a רפואה שלימה לאריאל בן ורה בתוך שאר חולי ישראל.
First, I've been out with the flu for a few days.
Second, I thought that Ben Chorin had offered the best comment. No matter what Sharon did (and anyone who reads this blog knows exactly what I think of his present policies), he still deserves our prayers as a person, as a Jew and as one who has, on more than one occasion, saved this country when every one else counted us down and out.
So: Tehillim 6 and 130 for a רפואה שלימה לאריאל בן ורה בתוך שאר חולי ישראל.
A Study in Constrasts
The Atlantic Monthly continues to provide thoughtful examinations of contemporary, cultural issues. Contrast the following:
Kicking the Secularist Habit by David Brooks [The Atlantic Monthly, February 2003 ]
and
Is God an accident? by Paul Bloom [The Atlantic Monthly December 2005]
Kicking the Secularist Habit by David Brooks [The Atlantic Monthly, February 2003 ]
and
Is God an accident? by Paul Bloom [The Atlantic Monthly December 2005]
The Power of Disbelief: Reflections on Asarah be-Tevet
The Power of Disbelief: On Asarah be-Tevet
לעי"נ אמי מורתי פעשא בת יוסף ע"ה
נלב"ע ט' טבת תשנ"א לפ"ק
As is well known, unique occasions were set aside to memorialize the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Bet HaMiqdash, by the Babylonians. Thus, after the return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple, the question was posed whether these remained in force. As the prophet Zekhariah recounts (Zekh. 7, 1-5):
And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of the Lord came to Zekhariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, that is Kislev; When Bet-el-sarezer, and Regem-melech and his men, had sent a message to beg the God’s favour, and to speak to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying: ‘Should I weep in the fifth month, abstaining, as I have done these so many years?’ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: ‘Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month, for all these seventy years, did you fast for Me, even to Me?
According to Hazal, days of fasting and prayer had been established in the months of Tevet, Tammuz, Av and Tishre in memory of disasters that had befallen the Jewish People. As the Tosefta states (Sotah 6, 1):
Rabbi expounded: It states, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be joy and gladness for the house of Judah, and cheerful seasons; therefore love truth and peace’ (Zekh. 8, 19). ‘The fast of the fourth month,’ refers to to the Seventeenth of Tammuz, when the city was breached… The ‘fast of the fifth’ is Tisha B’Av, the day upon which the Bet ha-Miqdash was burned… The ‘fast of the seventh’ is the day upon which Gedalyah b. Ahiqam was murdered by Yishmael b. Netanya (IIKings 25, 25-26 and Jer. 41, 1-18). This is to teach you that, before God, the death of the righteous is equal to the destruction of the Temple…The ‘fast of the tenth’ is the Tenth of Tevet, when the king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem.
In the context of the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jews from Eretz Yisrael, the are obvious common denominators to the first three of these fast days. To begin with, all of them commemorate tragic event that had immediate, and disasterous, consequences. The breaching of the Jerusalem city wall on the 17th of Tammuz marked the imminent, and inevitable, fall of the rest of the city. On Tisha B’Av, both Temples were destroyed. On Tzom Gedaliah, ‘Gedaliah, the son of Ahiqam was slain, thus extinguishing the last remaining ember of Israel’s independence and making her exile complete’(Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Ta’anyiot 5, 2).
On the other hand, these three days of remembrance were fortunate enough to be integrated into larger frameworks. Shiva Asar be-Tammuz and Tisha be-Av belong (indeed, created) the rubric of the ‘Three Weeks,’ while Tzom Gedaliah was subsumed into Aseret Yeme Teshuva. This heightened general awareness of their existence and significance.
The fate of Asarah be-Tevet was somewhat different. From a calendrical perspective, it was not attached to any other context, which might have strengthened public consciousness of its importance and meaning. More importantly, prima facie the content of Asarah be-Tevet is markedly different from the other three days. After all, it marks neither the end of a process, nor an event that had immediate results. Asarah be-Tevet simply marks the beginning of the eighteen month Babylonian siege on Jerusalem. There is, therefore, room to ask: ‘What was it about that even that made the exiles decide, evidently on their own, to establish a day of fasting a introspection in memory of the start of the siege? What kind of trauma did the Jewish People undergo, when they heard that the siege of Jerusalem had started?
Yet, it is clear from the way in which Ezekiel describes the way in which he heard of the siege that the Jews they were truly stunned at the news (Ezek. 24, 1-2).
And the word of God came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, saying: ‘Son of man, write for yourself the name of the day, even of this very same day; on this very day the king of Babylon hath laid siege to Jerusalem.
The shock that took hold of the prophet is evident in the message that he received. Three times God repeats the words ‘this day,’ as if to emphasize that the magnitude of the development that befell Jerusalem on ‘this very day.’ The reader can sense how stunned and agitated he was, unable to absorb what God was, in fact, telling him. Indeed, it was for that reason that God repeated the words ‘this day,’ over and over. He needed to drive home to Ezekiel that this much feared event had, in fact, taken place.
Upon further reflection, however, this conclusion is difficult to maintain. How could Ezekiel not have known that Nebuchadnezzar was on his way to invade the Land of Israel, with the intention of laying waste to Jerusalem? He had so prophesied and it is likely that he, himself, witnessed the king’s departure. Why was he so surprised?
It seems to me that the answer may be found in the regnant belief that Jerusalem and the Bet ha-Miqdash were invulnerable. This conviction is clearly expressed in Jeremiah’s famous oration before the Temple:
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Stand in the gate of God’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear God’s word, all you of Judah, that enter into these gates to worship God. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust not in lying words, saying: These are ‘God’s Temple,’ ‘God’s Temple,’ ‘God’s Temple’… Behold, you put your trust in lies, that cannot profit’(Jer. 7, 1-4 and 8).
Jeremiah is protesting against the widespread belief that Jerusalem and the Temple, by virtue of their very existence, were invulnerable to the Babylonian onslaught. God, they maintained, would never let them subdue His country, destroy His house and exile His people- irrespective of their religious or moral conduct. It was just this illusion from which Jeremish sought to disabuse them.
Nay, but if you thoroughly improve your ways and your deeds; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbour; if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, nor follow other gods to your own harm; then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever. Will ye steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, sacrifice to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you have not known, and come and stand before Me in this house, that bears My Name, and say: ‘We are delivered,’ so that you may do all of these abominations? Has this house, that bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord. Go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I caused My name to dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these things, says the Lord, and I consistently spoke to you, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer; therefore I will do to the house, that bears My Name, wherein you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, the entire seed of Ephraim (ibid. 5-15).
Here, I would suggest, is the source of Ezekiel’s incredulous reaction to God’s message. Clearly, he knew what was about to occur. He had himself forseen it and prophesied about it. When that prophecy of retribution began to be realized, however, he found it nigh on impossible to absorb the news. Hence, HaQadosh Barukh, hu was forced to emphatically stress that the worst case scenario was unfolding. No wonder, then, that the rest of the people were totally caught off guard and traumatized by the very idea of Jerusalem coming under siege. The central lesson of Asarah be-Tevet, the vulnerability of Jerusalem as a direct result of the corrupt behaviour of the people, led them to include the day upon which the siege commenced among the days of fasting, mourning and remembrance that were established in the wake of the destruction of the Bet ha-Miqdash.
In light of the above, the Rambam’s words acquire special urgency (Hil. Ta’aniyot 5, 1):
There are days which are observed by all Israel as fasts because tragic events happened on them, the object being to stir hearts and open the way to repentence, and to remind us of our own evil deeds, and of our fathers’ deeds which were like ours, as a consequence of which these
tragic afflictions came upon them and upon us. For as we remember these things we ought to repent and do good, in accordance with the Scriptural verse, ‘And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers’(Lev. 26, 40).
לעי"נ אמי מורתי פעשא בת יוסף ע"ה
נלב"ע ט' טבת תשנ"א לפ"ק
As is well known, unique occasions were set aside to memorialize the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Bet HaMiqdash, by the Babylonians. Thus, after the return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple, the question was posed whether these remained in force. As the prophet Zekhariah recounts (Zekh. 7, 1-5):
And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of the Lord came to Zekhariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, that is Kislev; When Bet-el-sarezer, and Regem-melech and his men, had sent a message to beg the God’s favour, and to speak to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying: ‘Should I weep in the fifth month, abstaining, as I have done these so many years?’ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying: ‘Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month, for all these seventy years, did you fast for Me, even to Me?
According to Hazal, days of fasting and prayer had been established in the months of Tevet, Tammuz, Av and Tishre in memory of disasters that had befallen the Jewish People. As the Tosefta states (Sotah 6, 1):
Rabbi expounded: It states, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be joy and gladness for the house of Judah, and cheerful seasons; therefore love truth and peace’ (Zekh. 8, 19). ‘The fast of the fourth month,’ refers to to the Seventeenth of Tammuz, when the city was breached… The ‘fast of the fifth’ is Tisha B’Av, the day upon which the Bet ha-Miqdash was burned… The ‘fast of the seventh’ is the day upon which Gedalyah b. Ahiqam was murdered by Yishmael b. Netanya (IIKings 25, 25-26 and Jer. 41, 1-18). This is to teach you that, before God, the death of the righteous is equal to the destruction of the Temple…The ‘fast of the tenth’ is the Tenth of Tevet, when the king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem.
In the context of the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jews from Eretz Yisrael, the are obvious common denominators to the first three of these fast days. To begin with, all of them commemorate tragic event that had immediate, and disasterous, consequences. The breaching of the Jerusalem city wall on the 17th of Tammuz marked the imminent, and inevitable, fall of the rest of the city. On Tisha B’Av, both Temples were destroyed. On Tzom Gedaliah, ‘Gedaliah, the son of Ahiqam was slain, thus extinguishing the last remaining ember of Israel’s independence and making her exile complete’(Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Ta’anyiot 5, 2).
On the other hand, these three days of remembrance were fortunate enough to be integrated into larger frameworks. Shiva Asar be-Tammuz and Tisha be-Av belong (indeed, created) the rubric of the ‘Three Weeks,’ while Tzom Gedaliah was subsumed into Aseret Yeme Teshuva. This heightened general awareness of their existence and significance.
The fate of Asarah be-Tevet was somewhat different. From a calendrical perspective, it was not attached to any other context, which might have strengthened public consciousness of its importance and meaning. More importantly, prima facie the content of Asarah be-Tevet is markedly different from the other three days. After all, it marks neither the end of a process, nor an event that had immediate results. Asarah be-Tevet simply marks the beginning of the eighteen month Babylonian siege on Jerusalem. There is, therefore, room to ask: ‘What was it about that even that made the exiles decide, evidently on their own, to establish a day of fasting a introspection in memory of the start of the siege? What kind of trauma did the Jewish People undergo, when they heard that the siege of Jerusalem had started?
Yet, it is clear from the way in which Ezekiel describes the way in which he heard of the siege that the Jews they were truly stunned at the news (Ezek. 24, 1-2).
And the word of God came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, saying: ‘Son of man, write for yourself the name of the day, even of this very same day; on this very day the king of Babylon hath laid siege to Jerusalem.
The shock that took hold of the prophet is evident in the message that he received. Three times God repeats the words ‘this day,’ as if to emphasize that the magnitude of the development that befell Jerusalem on ‘this very day.’ The reader can sense how stunned and agitated he was, unable to absorb what God was, in fact, telling him. Indeed, it was for that reason that God repeated the words ‘this day,’ over and over. He needed to drive home to Ezekiel that this much feared event had, in fact, taken place.
Upon further reflection, however, this conclusion is difficult to maintain. How could Ezekiel not have known that Nebuchadnezzar was on his way to invade the Land of Israel, with the intention of laying waste to Jerusalem? He had so prophesied and it is likely that he, himself, witnessed the king’s departure. Why was he so surprised?
It seems to me that the answer may be found in the regnant belief that Jerusalem and the Bet ha-Miqdash were invulnerable. This conviction is clearly expressed in Jeremiah’s famous oration before the Temple:
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: Stand in the gate of God’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say: Hear God’s word, all you of Judah, that enter into these gates to worship God. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust not in lying words, saying: These are ‘God’s Temple,’ ‘God’s Temple,’ ‘God’s Temple’… Behold, you put your trust in lies, that cannot profit’(Jer. 7, 1-4 and 8).
Jeremiah is protesting against the widespread belief that Jerusalem and the Temple, by virtue of their very existence, were invulnerable to the Babylonian onslaught. God, they maintained, would never let them subdue His country, destroy His house and exile His people- irrespective of their religious or moral conduct. It was just this illusion from which Jeremish sought to disabuse them.
Nay, but if you thoroughly improve your ways and your deeds; if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbour; if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, nor follow other gods to your own harm; then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever. Will ye steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, sacrifice to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you have not known, and come and stand before Me in this house, that bears My Name, and say: ‘We are delivered,’ so that you may do all of these abominations? Has this house, that bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord. Go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I caused My name to dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these things, says the Lord, and I consistently spoke to you, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer; therefore I will do to the house, that bears My Name, wherein you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, the entire seed of Ephraim (ibid. 5-15).
Here, I would suggest, is the source of Ezekiel’s incredulous reaction to God’s message. Clearly, he knew what was about to occur. He had himself forseen it and prophesied about it. When that prophecy of retribution began to be realized, however, he found it nigh on impossible to absorb the news. Hence, HaQadosh Barukh, hu was forced to emphatically stress that the worst case scenario was unfolding. No wonder, then, that the rest of the people were totally caught off guard and traumatized by the very idea of Jerusalem coming under siege. The central lesson of Asarah be-Tevet, the vulnerability of Jerusalem as a direct result of the corrupt behaviour of the people, led them to include the day upon which the siege commenced among the days of fasting, mourning and remembrance that were established in the wake of the destruction of the Bet ha-Miqdash.
In light of the above, the Rambam’s words acquire special urgency (Hil. Ta’aniyot 5, 1):
There are days which are observed by all Israel as fasts because tragic events happened on them, the object being to stir hearts and open the way to repentence, and to remind us of our own evil deeds, and of our fathers’ deeds which were like ours, as a consequence of which these
tragic afflictions came upon them and upon us. For as we remember these things we ought to repent and do good, in accordance with the Scriptural verse, ‘And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers’(Lev. 26, 40).
(The above is an English version of this posting and of my article in Bar-Ilan's Daf ha-Shavua. An expanded version, with footnotes, is slated to appear soon in Torah Currents, sponsored by the Orthodox Caucus.)
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Required Reading
In case you've missed these:
Benny Morris on The Palestinians and Transfer:
...A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians.Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse theborder areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse thevillages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.
..I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire toestablish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by thePalestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war."
Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state inthis place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them."
Caroline Glick on the Israeli Media:
The fact of the matter is that at least in America, there is a reasoned, impassioned debate over whether or not the media suffers from an institutional bias. And both sides are taking the steps they deem necessary to ensure that their side wins both the debate and the support of the American public.
In Israel's media culture, no such debate exists. It isn't that Israelis do not see the far-left bias of the major media outlets in the country. Everyone here knows that the press is leftist. The problem is that now that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has himself adopted the political platform of the radical Left, there is no debate about anything at all. Sharon's political opponents receive little more than a sneering brush-off from the major papers while Sharon himself is venerated from every angle in the best tradition of North Korea.
Last weekend's mass-circulation Hebrew papers are case in point. In Ma'ariv's news supplement, diplomatic "analyst" Ben Caspit wrote yet another of his nauseating hagiographies of Sharon....Then there is Yediot Ahronot's diplomatic "analyst" Nahum Barnea. He devoted the first half of his two-page spread in Yediot's news supplement this weekend to a mind numbing, pandering interview with former Shin Bet director Avi Dichter - Sharon's latest recruit to his Kadima one-man party. Barnea, who is generally a pacifist, ignored his anti-war tendencies in this case to buck up Sharon's newest pretty boy...
Last week Israel absorbed terrorist attacks on all fronts. Kassam rockets rained down on Ashkelon, Sderot and the communities of the Western Negev. Katyusha rockets were launched against cities in the North. Palestinians attacked Israelis throughout Judea and Samaria and an IDF officer was killed when he stopped a suicide bomber at a roadblock outside of Tulkarm. The Palestinian Authority has ceased to operate in any effective way. Foreigners are kidnapped on a daily basis in Gaza. All Palestinian terror groups have called off their imaginary cease-fire. Hamas's chieftain Khaled Mashaal just rounded off a two week visit to Iran, replete with a prolonged visit to a Revolutionary Guards training base. And the IDF has acknowledged that al-Qaida has successfully seeded itself not only in Gaza but in northern Samaria. But all of this is relegated to the back pages of the newspapers, because the only thing that Israelis need to know is that Sharon is a great man and a great leader. He's as fit as a fiddle and the fact that the physicians at Hadassah hospital lied two weeks ago to the Israeli public when they said that Sharon had suffered from a minor stroke, when in fact, as came out a week later he had a major stroke, should be of no concern to anyone.
It is a terrible thing when in a democracy as small and as vulnerable as Israel the media takes it upon itself to collude with a failed, sick leader in systematically lying to the public about the state of the country in order to advance a dangerous political agenda that has already been borne out by events as a failure.
Indeed, when the history of our times is written, the treachery of the Western media will fill future generations with disgust. And the perfidy of the Israeli media will be the source of the most extreme revulsion.
UPDATE: I've corrected the link to the Benny Morris interview.
Benny Morris on The Palestinians and Transfer:
...A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians.Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse theborder areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse thevillages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.
..I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire toestablish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by thePalestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war."
Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state inthis place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them."
Caroline Glick on the Israeli Media:
The fact of the matter is that at least in America, there is a reasoned, impassioned debate over whether or not the media suffers from an institutional bias. And both sides are taking the steps they deem necessary to ensure that their side wins both the debate and the support of the American public.
In Israel's media culture, no such debate exists. It isn't that Israelis do not see the far-left bias of the major media outlets in the country. Everyone here knows that the press is leftist. The problem is that now that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has himself adopted the political platform of the radical Left, there is no debate about anything at all. Sharon's political opponents receive little more than a sneering brush-off from the major papers while Sharon himself is venerated from every angle in the best tradition of North Korea.
Last weekend's mass-circulation Hebrew papers are case in point. In Ma'ariv's news supplement, diplomatic "analyst" Ben Caspit wrote yet another of his nauseating hagiographies of Sharon....Then there is Yediot Ahronot's diplomatic "analyst" Nahum Barnea. He devoted the first half of his two-page spread in Yediot's news supplement this weekend to a mind numbing, pandering interview with former Shin Bet director Avi Dichter - Sharon's latest recruit to his Kadima one-man party. Barnea, who is generally a pacifist, ignored his anti-war tendencies in this case to buck up Sharon's newest pretty boy...
Last week Israel absorbed terrorist attacks on all fronts. Kassam rockets rained down on Ashkelon, Sderot and the communities of the Western Negev. Katyusha rockets were launched against cities in the North. Palestinians attacked Israelis throughout Judea and Samaria and an IDF officer was killed when he stopped a suicide bomber at a roadblock outside of Tulkarm. The Palestinian Authority has ceased to operate in any effective way. Foreigners are kidnapped on a daily basis in Gaza. All Palestinian terror groups have called off their imaginary cease-fire. Hamas's chieftain Khaled Mashaal just rounded off a two week visit to Iran, replete with a prolonged visit to a Revolutionary Guards training base. And the IDF has acknowledged that al-Qaida has successfully seeded itself not only in Gaza but in northern Samaria. But all of this is relegated to the back pages of the newspapers, because the only thing that Israelis need to know is that Sharon is a great man and a great leader. He's as fit as a fiddle and the fact that the physicians at Hadassah hospital lied two weeks ago to the Israeli public when they said that Sharon had suffered from a minor stroke, when in fact, as came out a week later he had a major stroke, should be of no concern to anyone.
It is a terrible thing when in a democracy as small and as vulnerable as Israel the media takes it upon itself to collude with a failed, sick leader in systematically lying to the public about the state of the country in order to advance a dangerous political agenda that has already been borne out by events as a failure.
Indeed, when the history of our times is written, the treachery of the Western media will fill future generations with disgust. And the perfidy of the Israeli media will be the source of the most extreme revulsion.
UPDATE: I've corrected the link to the Benny Morris interview.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Comfort and Immortality
I have never posted on צדקה related issues. However, two projects recently came across my desk that I feared might get lost in the shuffle. Both are efforts to memorialize wonderful young men who fell in the defense of Israel, in our ongoing war against Palestinian terror.
The first is a park that will be built in Alon Shvut in memory of Daniel Mandel (his bio is here). The project is described here.
The second is an effort to acquire a building at Kvutzat Reut, in memory of Matanya Robinson (Email me for the details: woolfj@gmail.com).
Both are incredibly important and meaningful ways to let these two remarkable young men live on, after their lives were cut short so tragically.
The first is a park that will be built in Alon Shvut in memory of Daniel Mandel (his bio is here). The project is described here.
The second is an effort to acquire a building at Kvutzat Reut, in memory of Matanya Robinson (Email me for the details: woolfj@gmail.com).
Both are incredibly important and meaningful ways to let these two remarkable young men live on, after their lives were cut short so tragically.
Monday, January 02, 2006
On Humility
When I was writing the piece on Asarah be-Tevet, I was also thinking about how humility is a virtue that we really don't understand, don't appreciate, much less cultivate. Even those whose lives are based upon humility, reject it.
Take my colleagues in academia. The scientific method is, by definition, predicated upon the idea that all knowledge is conditional. Absolute certainty is impossible, because all you know is what you've managed to prove to this point with the data at hand. Ten minutes from now, you (or someone else) may totally upend your conclusion in the light of new evidence or a new insight. Of course, you must follow your present conclusion because that's what you've got. What you don't have is the right to be dogmatic. On the contrary, the awareness of the conditional nature of knowledge should instill scholars with humility. Yet, far too many of them are not only dogmatic, they get abusively so.
I fear that rabbis also fall into this trap. This is not the place to get into a long dissertation about the dynamics of Halakhic decision-making. However, as evidenced during the so-called 'Disengagement,' when it comes to non-Halakhic issues- Humility flies out the window. Too many people 'know' what God wants (never mind predicting what will or won't happen). How can they know? You can hope. You can pray. You can approximate. At some stage, however, they need to have the humility to say, 'I will accept whatever God decides.' The message then must be passed on to those who heed them.
In this regard, I think religious society has fallen into the worst aspect of Late Modernity, namely 'Self-Worship.' The Western World worships Man, i.e. itself. A narcissistic culture, an idolatrous culture, has no room for humility, even as a theoretical construct. As the Rov points out in Sacred and Profane, the Greek view of the hero is categorically opposed to that of Judaism. The Greek hero conquers others. The Jewish hero, first and foremost, conquers himself. Obviously, the Torah does not seek passivility in man. However, man reaches his greatest heights when he acknowledges his limitations.
That, too, is part of what lies behind Asarah be-Tevet.
Take my colleagues in academia. The scientific method is, by definition, predicated upon the idea that all knowledge is conditional. Absolute certainty is impossible, because all you know is what you've managed to prove to this point with the data at hand. Ten minutes from now, you (or someone else) may totally upend your conclusion in the light of new evidence or a new insight. Of course, you must follow your present conclusion because that's what you've got. What you don't have is the right to be dogmatic. On the contrary, the awareness of the conditional nature of knowledge should instill scholars with humility. Yet, far too many of them are not only dogmatic, they get abusively so.
I fear that rabbis also fall into this trap. This is not the place to get into a long dissertation about the dynamics of Halakhic decision-making. However, as evidenced during the so-called 'Disengagement,' when it comes to non-Halakhic issues- Humility flies out the window. Too many people 'know' what God wants (never mind predicting what will or won't happen). How can they know? You can hope. You can pray. You can approximate. At some stage, however, they need to have the humility to say, 'I will accept whatever God decides.' The message then must be passed on to those who heed them.
In this regard, I think religious society has fallen into the worst aspect of Late Modernity, namely 'Self-Worship.' The Western World worships Man, i.e. itself. A narcissistic culture, an idolatrous culture, has no room for humility, even as a theoretical construct. As the Rov points out in Sacred and Profane, the Greek view of the hero is categorically opposed to that of Judaism. The Greek hero conquers others. The Jewish hero, first and foremost, conquers himself. Obviously, the Torah does not seek passivility in man. However, man reaches his greatest heights when he acknowledges his limitations.
That, too, is part of what lies behind Asarah be-Tevet.
Illusions and Vulnerability: On Asarah be-Tevet
I often find that the most profound lessons are found in the most unlikely places. Herewith, my thoughts on the origin and significance of Asarah be-Tevet. [NOTE: The piece was published as part of the Daf HaShavua Project at Bar Ilan.]
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