...Read in its historical context,...the Hanukkah story is really about a revolt against the Hellenized Jews who had fallen madly in love with the sophisticated, globalizing superculture of their day. The Apocrypha's texts make it clear that the battle against Hellenization was, in fact, a kulturkampf among the Jews themselves. Here is how the first Book of the Maccabees describes Jerusalem on the eve of civil war and revolt in the time of Antiochus (translation by Nicholas de Lange):
At that time there were some evil-doers in Israel who tried to win popularity for a policy of integration with the surrounding nations. It was because the Jews had kept themselves aloof for so long, they claimed, that so many hardships had befallen them. They acquired a following and applied to Antiochus, who authorized them to introduce the Greek way of life. They built a Greek gymnasium in Jerusalem and even had themselves uncircumcised.
Uncircumcision as the price of admission to the Jerusalem gym! When they were eight days old, the "sign of the covenant" had been carved in their flesh; now as young men, these Jews risked health and sacrificed sexual pleasure to "become one flesh" with the regnant beauty culture. In Judea, then, there were Jews choosing to die rather than publicly profane Jewish law—and there were Jews risking death to free themselves from the parochial constraints of that law. The historic Jewish passion to merge and disappear confronted the attested Jewish will to stand apart and persist.
That's the clash of Hanukkah. Armed Hasmonean priests and their comrades from the rural town of Modi'in attacked urban Jews, priests and laity alike, who supported Greek reform, like the gymnasium and new rules for governing commerce. The Hasmoneans imposed, at sword's edge, traditional observance. After years of protracted warfare, the priests established a Hasmonean state that never ceased fighting Jews who disagreed with its rule....
And this battle is still going on today. The Torah-true Jews who cherish their uniqueness and guard against foreign intrusion are an extreme minority. It is also very noteworthy that every trouble we have ever had with foreign rulers was due to reshaim who wanted to assimilate.
DOWN WITH CHANUKAH by Rabbi Meir Kahane December 15, 1972
If I were a Reform rabbi; if I were a leader of the Establishment whose money and prestige have succeeded in capturing for him the leadership and voice of American Jewry; if I were one of the members of the Israeli Government’s ruling group; if I were an enlightened sophisticated, modern Jewish intellectual, I would climb the barricades and join in battle against the most dangerous of all Jewish holidays – Chanukah.
It is a measure of the total ignorance of the world Jewish community that there is no holiday that is more universally celebrated than the “Feast of Lights”, and it is an equal measure of the intellectual dishonesty and of Jewish leadership that it plays along with the lie. For if ever there was a holiday that stands for everything that the mass of world Jewry and their leadership has rejected – it is this one. If one would find an event that is truly rooted in everything that Jews of our times and their leaders have rejected and, indeed, attacked – it is this one. If there is any holiday that is more “unJewish” in the sense of our modern beliefs and practices – I do not know of it.
The Chanukah that has erupted unto the world Jewish scene in all its childishness, asininity, shallowness, ignorance and fraud – is not the Chanukah of reality. The Chanukah that came into vogue because of Jewish parents – in their vapidness – needed something to counteract Christmas; that exploded in a show of “we-can-have-lights-just-as-our-goyish-neighbors” and in an effort to reward our spoiled children with eight gifts instead of the poor Christian one; the Chanukah that the Temple, under its captive rabbi, turned into a school pageant so that the beaming parents might think that the Religious School is really successful instead of the tragic joke and waste that it really is; the Chanukah that speaks of Jewish Patrick Henrys giving-me-liberty-or death and the pictures of Maccabees as great liberal saviors who fought so that the kibbutzim might continue to be free to preach their Marx and eat their ham, that the split-level dwellers of suburbia might be allowed to violate their Sabbath in perfect freedom and the Reform and Conservative Temples continue the fight for civil rights for Blacks, Puerto Ricans and Jane Fonda, is not remotely connected with reality.
This is NOT the Chanukah of our ancestors, of the generations of Jews of Eastern Europe and Yemen and Morocco and the crusades and Spain and Babylon. It is surely not the Chanukah for which the Maccabees themselves died. Truly, could those whom we honor so munificently, return and see what Chanukah has become, they might very well begin a second Maccabean revolt. For the life that we Jews lead today was the very cause, the REAL reason for the revolt of the Jews “in those days in our times.”
What happened in that era more than 2000 years ago? What led a handful of Jews to rise up in violence against the enemy? And precisely who WAS the enemy? What were they fighting FOR and who were they fighting AGAINST?
For years, the people of Judea had been the vassals of Greece. True independence as a state had been unknown for all those decades and, yet, the Jews did not rise up in revolt. It was only when the Greek policy shifted from mere political control to one that attempted to suppress the Jewish religion that the revolt erupted in all its bloodiness. It was not mere liberty that led to the Maccabean uprising that we so passionately applaud. What we are really cheering is a brave group of Jews who fought and plunged Judea into a bloodbath for the right to observe the Sabbath, to follow the laws of kashruth, to obey the laws of the Torah. IN A WORD EVERYTHING ABOUT CHANUKAH THAT WE COMMEMORATE AND TEACH OUR CHILDREN TO COMMEMORATE ARE THINGS WE CONSIDER TO BE OUTMODED, MEDIEVAL AND CHILDISH!
At best, then, those who fought and died for Chanukah were naïve and obscurantist. Had we lived in those days we would certainly not have done what they did for everyone knows that the laws of the Torah are not really Divine but only the products of evolution and men (do not the Reform, Reconstructionist and large parts of the Conservative movements write this daily?) Surely we would not have fought for that which we violate every day of our lives! No, at best Chanukah emerges as a needless holiday if not a foolish one. Poor Hannah and her seven children; poor Mattathias and Judah; poor well meaning chaps all but hopelessly backward and utterly unnecessary sacrifices.
But there is more. Not only is Chanukah really a foolish and unnecessary holiday, it is also one that is dangerously fanatical and illiberal. The first act of rebellion, the first enemy who fell at the hands of the brave Jewish heroes whom our delightful children portray so cleverly in their Sunday and religious school pageants, was NOT a Greek. He was a Jew.
When the enemy sent its troops into the town of Modiin to set up an idol and demand its worship, it was a Jew who decided to exercise his freedom of pagan worship and who approached the altar to worship Zeus (after all, what business was it of anyone what this fellow worshipped?) And it was this Jew, this apostate, this religious traitor who was struck down by the brave, glorious, courageous (are these not the words all our Sunday schools use to describe him?) Mattathias, as he shouted: “Whoever is for G-d, follow me!”
What have we here? What kind of religious intolerance and bigotry? What kind of a man is this for the anti-religious of Hashomer Hatzair, the graceful temples of suburbia, the sophisticated intellectuals, the liberal open-minded Jews and all the drones who have wearied us unto death with the concept of Judaism as a humanistic, open-minded, undogmatic, liberal, universalistic (if not Marxist) religion, to honor? What kind of nationalism is this for David-Ben-Gurion (he who rejects the Galut and speaks of the proud, free Jew of ancient Judea and Israel)?
And to crush us even more (we who know that Judaism is a faith of peace which deplores violence), what kind of Jews were these who reacted to oppression with FORCE? Surely we who so properly have deplored Jewish violence as fascistic, immoral and (above all!) UN-JEWISH, stand in horror as we contemplate Jews who declined to picket the Syrian Greeks to death and who rejected quiet diplomacy for the sword, spear and arrow (had there been bombs in those days, who can tell what they might have done?) and “descended to the level of evil,” thus rejecting the ethical and moral concepts of Judaism.
Is this the kind of a holiday we wish to propagate? Are these the kinds of men we want our moral and humanistic children to honor? Is this the kind of Judaism that we wish to observe and pass on to our children?
Where shall we find the man of courage the one voice, in the wilderness to cry out against Chanukah and the Judaism that it represents-the Judaism of our grandparents and ancestors? Where shall we find the man of honesty and integrity to attack the Judaism of Medievalism and outdated foolishness; the Judaism of bigotry that strikes down Jews who refuse to observe the law; the Judaism of violence that calls for Jewish force and might against the enemy? When shall we find the courage to proudly eat our Chinese food and violate our Sabbaths and reject all the separateness, nationalism and religious maximalism that Chanukah so ignobly represents? …Down with Chanukah! It is a regressive holiday that merely symbolizes the Judaism that always was; the Judaism that was handed down to us from Sinai; the Judaism that made our ancestors ready to give their lives for the L-rd; the Judaism that young people instinctively know is true and great and real. Such Judaism is dangerous for us and our leaders. We must do all in our power to bury it.
UPDATE: For those who want an organized outcry to HKB"H for redemption now (sorry I didn't think of it sooner), please have this kavanah during Hallel on every day of Hanukkah where we say "ana Hashem hoshia na, ana Hashem hatzlicha na." Spread the word! 🙂
(Reposting from notes taken on a shiur by Rabbi Sitorsky - Kislev 5771...)
Hanukkah can be found in Parashat Vayeshev.
...the Shlah Hakadosh tells us that golus Yavan occurred because of the sin of the selling of Yosef Hatzadik, which automatically connects this parashah to Hanukkah because it is the Shabbat that we read about Mechirat Yosef. Because of Mechirat Yosef (the sale of Yosef), there was a Greek exile and because there was a Greek exile, there was a geulah from Greece which was Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the geulah from the Greek exile, so Hanukkah is the holiday to rectify the selling of Yosef.
The sin of Mechirat Yosef was a blemish in the unity of Am Yisrael and a blemish in the area of speech. There was an aspect of lashon hara involved. Yosef reported on his brothers. Yosef Hatzadik is punished. Meforshim say the ten years of incarceration is one year for each brother that he spoke against and the other two years for lack of faith in Hashem, according to Rashi.
The Shlah Hakadosh tells us that Yosef is Hanukkah. Avraham is Pesach, Yitzchak is Shavuot and Ya'aqov is Sukkot, so Yosef is Hanukkah.
Hanukkah is the holiday that brings near the Jews who are far away from Yiddishkeit. It affects those neshamas that no other holiday affects, including Shabbat. The most unaffiliated Jew, even if he doesn't keep Shabbat, will celebrate Hanukkah. It's for those who are outside...this is our generation.
Yosef Hatzadik brings near those who were far away. Hanukkah is the holiday of kiruv. Those who don't have a tikun any other time of the year, get a tikun on Hanukkah.
Yosef is a hidden tzadik. He's misunderstood; not accepted. Hanukkah, too, was not accepted at first. What would we be today without Hanukkah? What would we be today without Yosef Hatzadik?
Yosef and Binyamin HAVE to be united.
Yosef is the rival of Eisav.
Eisav was killed on Hanukkah. (Ya'aqov was buried on Hanukkah.) [Eisav has his 'holiday' at Hanukkah time.]
Binyamin is the rival of Yishmael.
Hanukkah is the tikun for pegam habrit. It prepares us for Shovavim. The story of Yehudah and Tamar is about the blemish that would prevent Mashiach and the repair for that blemish which results in the birth of Peretz, ancestor of Mashiach.
Hanukkah is not complete until Yosef and Binyamin are joined. Hanukkah is the fusion of Yosef and Binyamin. Hanukkah is the holiday to overpower Eisav joining with Yishmael.
Yishmael is the fifth exile. Hanukkah is the fifth holiday and we drink five cups on Pesach, the fifth is the cup of redemption. These five cups appear in the parashah. "Cup" is mentioned five times. Four in the story and once again at the end of the parashah. Hanukkah is the fifth cup. Hanukkah is the light of Melech HaMashiach. The light of the fifth geulah after the exile of Yishmael. Corresponds to the five levels of the neshamah. Yechidah, the highest level corresponding to the fifth (which also corresponds to Neilah of Yom Kippur).
Yishmael has their mosque on the very place of the Beit HaMikdash where the miracle of Hanukkah happened. On Hanukkah we can merit all five levels of the neshamah. The gematria of the names of the five levels of neshamah is equal to the phrase "lamed vav nerot shel Hanukkah." (Yishmaelim pray five times a day.)
Vayeshev means to relax, to rest in peace and tranquility, but the stories are anything but. They are full of tragedies. Why is it called "vayeshev"? Right in the middle comes the story of Yehudah and Tamar which opens the way for the birth of Mashiach. And the miracle of Hanukkah is hidden here. Out of all the tragedies of these stories comes the hope of Mashiach.
At the end of the parashah we see how all of the tragedies were working towards a wonderful end to provide a salvation for Am Yisrael. It's just the same now in our generation. Soon we will see how all of the tragedies that we are now suffering will end just as wonderfully.
I don't like publishing so much material so fast that the readers don't have time to take it all in and think it over, but I just don't have any choice right now. I feel an overpowering urgency to pound this message home. We are almost out of time.
~~~~~~~
It is so open and obvious, who can still fail to see it? From the beginning, they told us this was Israel's 9/11. Well, 9/11 was an inside job that became the justification for wars which would establish a new world order. In 2013, on this blog, I shared critical information which I was personally privy to in 2003. You can read the entire thing here: US Plan for MidEast Dominance Revealed in 2003. Here is an excerpt:
...[John Loftus] said that "good things" are going to happen for Israel in the near term and then he dropped his bombshell. Over the next two years, America is going to "take out all seven dictatorial regimes in the Middle East." [See General Wesley Clark saying the same thing in 2007.]
The conquest was begun with Iraq and is to be followed by Iran, the groundwork for which is already being laid and which, according to Mr. Loftus, will be finished "by Spring", only to be followed in swift succession by Libya, N. Korea (which will be divied up to China), Syria and Lebanon. Since Jordan and Egypt are already on America's payroll, that only leaves Saudi Arabia which will have no other option, according to Mr. Loftus, but to fall into line. The plan is ostensibly to "liberate" all the democracy-starved hordes of the Middle-East and rebuild all the war-torn countries courtesy of the American taxpayer (to whom Israel is also beholden, reminds Mr. Loftus, lest we Jews ever forget), and create a climate in which "moderate Islam" can flourish.
Then Mr. John Loftus, carefully and meticulously documented friend of the Jews, dropped his second bombshell. You know the "Road Map?" Well, according to him, "it's just a smoke screen to prevent a third front from opening up" and getting in the way of this grandiose scheme. And what does Washington want from Israel? According to Mr. Loftus, we are expected to behave pretty much as we did in Gulf War I. They want us to "sit back and let America take out all our enemies." The word "democracy" was repeated throughout the lecture almost like a mantra; as if it were a little god that we both worshipped. I could hardly contain myself. I was about ready to erupt and as I looked around me, the Jews were politely listening, laughing here and there as he joked good-naturedly.
Did you know we Jews are "not good at PR?" That's what Mr. Loftus says with a rueful smile. He says, regrettably, that "in American eyes, Oslo was necessary" despite the tragic loss of Jewish life. Our "biggest mistake," Mr. Loftus adjures, "was in not cultivating the US for help." We did not "make our case adequately to Congress."
He emphasized that no one anywhere in the world is a match for the US war machine and that all comers are left in the dust of American military might. When he proceeded to impress upon us the importance of the largesse so unselfishly bestowed upon us yearly by the predominately Gentile US taxpayers, I lost it and as a result, was asked to leave. So, what are we to make of this strange and unexpected revelation? I'll tell you what I think and then you be the judge.
Israel has no friend and no ally save her Father in Heaven....
You see, the "extremists" - on BOTH sides - stand in the way of their plans for global domination. While the IDF is hunting down Hamas in Gaza, other parts of the IDF are arresting and disarming "extremist settlers" in the "West Bank".
Religion will be allowed, but one that unites instead of dividing - certainly not one which insists it is the sole representative of Truth - like real Torah Judaism. Something more along these lines...
Again! It is so open and obvious, who can still fail to see it!? The United States has made no secret of the fact that they are never going to "allow" us to take back Gaza or annex the West Bank. We are not allowed to harm "innocent" Palestinians or get rid of the Palestinian Authority. Already today, they are back to demanding yet more fuel be let inside Gaza!
They moved in and began managing this "war" from the very beginning! (How did they know!?) They have no intention of letting us win. But, our IDF CAN do their dirty work of ridding the land of "extremists" who stand in the way of their vision of a world where THEY rule as a gods, r"l!
Gaza and the West Bank MUST AT ALL COSTS become "Palestine". And why?
Lest the messianic dreams of the Return to Zion be realized, lest the Temple Mount ever see one stone placed for a rebuilt Temple, in short, to prevent the fulfillment of God's will on earth.
The War is against the Master of the Universe and Amalek has their hand on His throne.
We are His foot soldiers and His palace guard. We MUST understand who the enemy is and what we have to do to DEFEAT them!
No matter what news site you visited today, you very likely read about the American plan for retribution against the "extremist West Bank settlers." According to one account, the US said the Israeli government simply isn't doing enough, so they must intervene. How long until American soldiers are patrolling our streets? God forbid!!
In a rare punitive move against Israel, the State Department said Tuesday it will impose travel bans on “extremist Jewish settlers” implicated in a rash of recent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the step after warning Israel last week that President Joe Biden’s administration would be taking action over the attacks. Blinken did not announce individual visa bans, but officials said those would be coming this week and could affect dozens of settlers and their families.
“We have underscored to the Israeli government the need to do more to hold accountable extremist settlers who have committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank,” Blinken said in a statement. “As President Biden has repeatedly said, those attacks are unacceptable.”
“Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said.
What a coincidence, on October 6, 2023, Haaretz ran an expose authored by Idan Yaron (which I can't fully access without paying).
Scholar Idan Yaron penetrated Israel's radical right, winning the trust of its leaders, attending their gatherings and even observing a pogrom. Now he's publishing a book on the Kahanist legacy they are perpetuating
The signal for the pogrom to start was given just hours after a terrorist attack on June 21 at a gas station near the West Bank settlement of Eli, in which four Israelis were killed and another four were wounded. The target of those bent on taking retaliatory “price tag” actions was the adjacent Palestinian village of Luban al-Sharqiya. Large numbers of young men arrived not only from the hard core of “hilltop youth” in the settlement of Yitzhar, but also included students from local high-school yeshivas and kollels....
I wrote the following in 2015...
There is no question that in today's politically-correct climate, our beloved Maccabees would be branded as "Jewish terrorists". And today, they would only have to lift a finger to a keyboard to be found guilty of terrorist "ideology" by the Israeli "Thought Police". By their standards, the Torah and the Siddur are in danger of being labeled seditious materials.
Consider the source of the following article. It's meant to be a hatchet job, but it contains some fascinating insights as well. You might call this a modern-day Hanukah story. If the Maccabees were with us today - and are they not? - then this is their story...
The Shin Bet describes him as a central figure in Jewish terrorism, 'a violent and dangerous ideological criminal,' while his friends tell of a quiet and pleasant young man who became a leader merely because of his writing skills; somewhere on the way, between the outposts he's been living in since he was 15, to his administrative detention following the Duma murders, Rabbi Meir Kahane's grandson has formed a radical and anti-Zionist ideology.
Eight years later, August 2023, the story continues. According to the New Lines Institute...
Israel’s governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is moving aggressively to establish political and security structures in the West Bank that will foreclose the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Far-right Cabinet members in powerful positions are pushing for closer collaboration between formal state security forces and nonstate settler militias in the West Bank. These actions delegate unprecedented power over key aspects of Israel’s military order in the West Bank to religious nationalists aligned with the Israeli settler movement and to extremist religious nationalist militants within Israel. In the near-term, if the Israeli coalition continues down this path, it will entrench a one-state reality designed to indefinitely suppress Palestinian social, political, economic, and security participation in that state.
The role of Israeli security units in that end state – especially if those units receive funding, training, or other support through U.S. security assistance to Israel – could soon present a complex but pressing challenge to U.S. policymakers. Already, Israeli settler militias are referred to as the “murky arm of the state” in the West Bank. Those militias are linked to human rights violations and large-scale attacks perpetrated against Palestinian residents of the West Bank, including recent violations against Palestinian-Americans, that have raised the concern of the U.S. government. The Israeli settler militias’ increasingly close cooperation with (and in some cases direct support from) the Israeli government complicates U.S. security assistance to one of its closest allies in the Middle East. Policymakers in Washington should closely monitor the developing relationships between Israel’s formal military structures and these newer state-aligned militias. The U.S. also should work to proactively communicate to the Israeli government the risks of deepening ties with organizations – state-run or otherwise – explicitly committed to crushing the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through armed violence.
...Israel’s governing coalition is wrestling with the evolution of an extremist religious nationalist movement that has metastasized from what was once characterized as Israel’s far-right political fringe. The strategic goal of this movement is to reshape the Israeli state to assert Jewish primacy over all of Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, including a hardline stance to limit or even eliminate the civil rights of Palestinians (whether or not they have Israeli citizenship).
This sociopolitical movement is not monolithic, but it fuses two main ideological currents, creating a potent alliance within Israel’s sociopolitics and, increasingly, within the state’s security strategy. One current comes from the Religious Zionist settler movement that developed after Israel won the 1967 Six-Day War and occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai. The second current comes from the now deceased Rabbi Meir Kahane, a U.S.-born religious leader and writer. Rabbi Kahane founded a political party, Kach, a sectarian militia that the U.S. listed as a terrorist organization until recently. He also founded the Jewish Defense League and became a controversial Israeli politician, remaining a potent figure even in death.
The Heirs of Kahane on the Rise
The ideological current led by Kahane until his assassination in 1990 garners the most attention because it is the most obviously associated with the potential to incite human rights violations. Kahane, who was banned from the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) in 1988 after one term for his racism, focused on the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel and the West Bank. He often fantasized about being appointed defense minister so he could order the IDF to “do whatever you need to do,” and tell Palestinians that “Whoever does not leave will be slaughtered.” After Kahane died, his movement remained a radical fringe largely rejected by mainstream Israeli politicians. The movement went on to be banned under Israel’s anti-terrorism laws in 1994, after avowed Kach supporter and U.S.-born Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians at the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Kahanism is a militant communalist ideology that seeks to impose sectarian dominance through the powers of the secular state structures. Religious Zionism is a messianic ideology that seeks to fulfill a religious mission through the settlement of the Jewish population without limits throughout Israel and the West Bank. In the past, these were distinct ideologies, but they are now blending in Israel and the West Bank, allowing a larger, more popular, and more militant messianic movement to take root.
Since Kahane’s assassination, his protégés have pursued a two-pronged approach to asserting their national vision. The first is a gradual reinvention of the Kach movement through more careful messaging, although with little shift in the end goal of asserting Jewish supremacy across all of Israel and the West Bank. Jewish Power, Kach’s ideological successor party led by Ben-Gvir, was founded in 2012. Ben-Gvir himself was a Kach member and youth coordinator before the group was outlawed in Israel. Ben-Gvir praised Kahane at a commemoration event in November 2022, after being reelected to the Knesset earlier that month, saying, “Ultimately Rabbi Kahane was about love. Love for Israel without compromise, without any other consideration.”
However, he has been careful to refrain from Kahane’s explicit endorsement of ethnic cleansing and mass violence against Palestinian civilians. In 2015, Ben-Gvir instructed his followers to chant “death to terrorists” instead of “death to Arabs,” telling them, “that’s legal with a stamp.”
In parallel with this effort to moderate, in word if not in deed, Israel’s far-right fringes have pursued a second tactic – acting outside the confines of the law, gambling that the Israeli state’s more moderate factions will lack the political wherewithal to rein them in. Israel’s growing “hilltop youth” movement represents the clearest example of this trend – loosely organized militias setting up illegal settlements across the West Bank and using them to conduct targeted harassment, beatings, and property damage against Palestinians. Meir Kahane’s grandson, Meir Ettinger, is a leader of the movement.
Senior leadership of the IDF generally views these militias as a nuisance and occasionally orders IDF soldiers to arrest members of these militias or clear encampments, although Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly rebuffed these requests. And although senior IDF leadership largely disapproves of the movement, some factions within the force have openly trained and equipped the militias to conduct human rights abuses against Palestinians. There is also reportedly a rise in support for the Jewish Power party among the IDF’s rank and file, with an estimated 20% of IDF soldiers voting for Ben-Gvir’s party. One hilltop youth leader has even been tapped as a spokesperson for a Knesset member in Ben-Gvir’s party. Over time, their illegal settlements become facts on the ground that are politically impossible to remove. Israel’s new far-right government is now moving to legalize them.
...The normal U.S. approach to monitoring and assessing security assistance to Israel – strategic ambiguity – will be tested harshly by the policy on the West Bank that Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, and their partners are implementing. Future U.S. efforts to have oversight over security assistance to Israel will be complicated by the policies of Israel’s government and will deteriorate because of the inclusion of extremist Jewish settler militias and their partners in the state-imposed security order in the West Bank. The primary goal of U.S. policy, to create conditions for a two-state reality for Israelis and Palestinians, is severely threatened. U.S. policymakers will also likely soon have to grapple with how to continue to support Israel in honor of the close relationship between the two countries, while also ensuring that U.S. security assistance does not empower Israeli forces that violate the human and civil rights of Palestinians.
Well, this all sounds like good news to me!
So, no matter which direction you look in, we are on a collision course... No! We have already collided with the US government and it's only going to get worse until HKB"H removes their power over us. The most important thing for us is that THE JEWS will understand that the United States is our enemy, no different from the Greeks and the Romans, and that they are doomed. We WILL have the victory yet AGAIN because WE ARE THE ETERNAL PEOPLE!
(H/T YB)
In the days of Mattityahu ben Yochanan, the Hasmonean High Priest, and his sons, when the wicked Greek Kingdom rose up against Your nation Israel to make them forget Your Torah and to remove them from the laws of your will, and You in Your great mercy stood up for them in their time of distress. You fought their fight, judged their judgement, and avenged their revenge. You turned over the strong into the hands of the weak, and the many into the hands of the few, and the impure into the hands of the pure, and the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and sinners into the hands of those involved with Your Torah. And for Yourself, You made a great and holy name in Your world, and for Your nation Israel You made a great salvation and redemption to this day.... (Al Hanissim Prayer for Hanukkah)
Rabbi Meir Kahane, ztz"l, Hy"d: "...Say the bitter truth, even though they won't like you. They won't like you, they'll attack you, but tell the Jews the truth if you love them. If you love Jews, tell them the things which will make them angry, but which can save their lives."
Antisemitism is a natural state of being for the nations. It's not that it suddenly pops up. No! It remains dormant at the will of HKB"H until it is needed as a tool to drive us out of an exile which has become too comfortable and complacent, when we have become most vulnerable to the scourge of assimilation.
When we settle in and begin to imagine (with pride) "this is my country, my president, my culture," HKB"H knows it's time to release the bar holding back the real antisemitic character of the nations. He let's us see what was always there, just beneath the surface. And for this reason, it's not something you can fight. You can't educate people out of it and you can't reason people out of it. You certainly can't shame people out of it and what we are seeing and hearing and experiencing GLOBALLY right now, should convince you of these facts.
The Prophet Yechezkel, chapter 20...
33 As I live, says the Lord God, surely with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with poured out fury, will I reign over you.
34 And I shall take you out of the peoples, and I shall gather you from the lands in which you were scattered, with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with poured out fury.
35 And I shall bring you to the wilderness of the peoples, and I shall contend with you there face to face.
36 As I contended with your forefathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I contend with you, says the Lord God.
37 And I shall cause you to pass under the rod, and I shall bring you into the transmission of the covenant.
38 And I shall separate from you those who rebel and those who transgress against Me; from the land of their sojournings I shall take them, but to the land of Israel they shall not come, and you will know that I am the Lord.
The first redemption is a pattern for the final redemption. Just as there were four-fifths of Bnei Yisrael who did not want to leave Egypt, there are those today who are like them - who are attached to western culture and 'values', which are antithetical to Torah and consequently, to the rule of Mashiach as well.
Just as no Jew was left behind in Egypt, no Jew will be left in the West, as this is the source of their power to harm the Jews in Eretz Yisrael. If they are 100% attached to HKB"H and His desire for them to be in Eretz Yisrael (meaning they remain in exile against their own will), rescue will come, but you must be ready for it. If you hesitate, if your heart and mind are not 100% with HKB"H, you will be lost. Those who remain in exile from their own free will have rejected HKB"H and He will reject them in turn. No one is implying a loss of their olam haba, if they have earned it, but they will miss out on Days of Mashiach.
Our Mashiach is destined to be the AntiMashiach to both the Christians and the Muslims, but when the nations line up to kill Mashiach ben Yosef, there will, without a doubt, be Jews at the front of the line, Jews who identify more with the Western ethos than they do with Torah Law, with more love for and unity with the nations than with their fellow Jews - especially those they deem to be "extremists" and "terrorists" simply because they insist that only the Torah is true and everything else is a lie.
Hanukkah is the celebration of Jewish "extremism" and Jewish "terrorism" in the interest of Jewish life and Torah in the Land of Israel.
Although we are currently (hopefully, assuredly) at the end of Galut Romi (the fourth exile associated with Rome), this final exile has within it aspects of all previous exiles as well.
[The Maharal of Prague in The Mitzvah Candle on Daniel's description of Nebuchadnetzar's dream] ...We thus find that Daniel saw the first three empires in one night, while he saw the fourth empire on a subsequent night.... Why? ...Rabbi Yohanan says, Because it was equivalent to all the others combined. ...the fourth empire was a universal synthesis, alone equivalent to the others...a combination of the three distinct qualities characterizing the first three empires....
So, in keeping with the aspect of the Greeks, The Hellenists (the mityavanim) are among us today, still ruling over us. Today, they call it Judeo-Christianity. Note well that this word makes the "Judeo" part simply an adjective describing another form of Christianity. In no way is it anything Jewish. The same goes for "Judeo-Christian values." This is the religion of the modern Hellenists who loved everything about Greek culture which today has been reincarnated in Western culture. Democracy (a Greek word describing a Greek form of government) is god in the West. Listen to one of our leading Mityavanim, Matan Kahana, hold forth at last week's Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast in the Knesset!!
I must digress here a moment. Remember this blog post from 5 November 2023: Tzeva Adom!... These Agents of Eisav, Hellenists all, are still crying over their failure to convince the entire nation to join in prayer with Christians before God Almighty, r"l. Baruch Hashem it did not come off, but they haven't yet given up.
PM Binyamin Netanyahu in response to Missionary Mike Evans' question about the "safety" of Evangelical Christians in light of recent vocal Jewish opposition to proselytizing:
"...I can assure you it is safe,” he said. “Those who’ve been to Israel know that when they come here, they’re really embraced. I mean, you will find that there is a very small minority who doesn’t share that view. We take very strong action against them because you are the greatest friends that the Jewish State has. I will never forget this and the vast majority of Israelis strongly agree with me, so please come to be safe. You’ll be welcome.”
Evans asked what the Christian community in the US could do at this time for Israel.
“Right now, the most important thing that you can do is to educate your younger generation, to infuse them with your faith, with your knowledge, with your heritage, with our common heritage, to tell them how important it is for history, for humanity, and for our Judeo Christian tradition. ...”
There needs to be regime change in Israel. There HAS to be regime change in Israel! Is Mashiach already here, prepared to do the job, if only we will keep faith with HKB"H and heed his anointed leader's words?
"TODAY! IF YOU WILL HEED MY VOICE." ~~~~~~~
*[Joel C. Rosenberg] has stated that his father is of Jewish descent and his mother was born into a Methodist family of English descent. His parents were agnostic and became born-again Christians when he was a child in 1973. At the age of 17, he became a born-again Christian and now identifies as a Jewish believer in Jesus.(Source)
