Dominance of the Alien Culture

22 Menachem Av 5773

Last time, I wrote about the danger of unrestrained chesed.  Unfortunately, this is a growing problem for the Jewish people as they assimilate more and more of the dominant alien culture.  America has been called a "Medina shel Chesed."  I suppose a case could be made for unrestrained chesed being at the core of all the permissiveness evident in that culture today.  This is not a good thing.  It's a recipe for chaos. In fact, if it continues, it will ultimately destroy the whole world.  It's based on everyone being allowed to do anything he wants - mothers can murder their children in the womb, homosexuals can perform a perversion of a wedding ceremony, people can walk naked in the streets like animals and fornicate in public places.  Nothing is forbidden, nothing is barred. Everyone is entitled to his own 'truth.'

Is this the situation desired by the Creator of the World?  Historically, the Truth has been the domain of the chosen few.  Let's take a look back for a moment...

[T]here arose people - false prophets - who told [the people] that God had commanded them to say: Serve this star - or all the stars - sacrifice to it, offer libations to it, build a temple to it and make an image of it so that all people - including the women, the children and the common people - could bow to it.

...People would gather together and bow down to them and the [false prophets] would say: This image is the source of benefit or harm. It is appropriate to serve it and fear it. Their priests would tell them: This service will enable you to multiply and be successful. Do this and this, or do not do this or this.

Subsequently, other deceivers arose and declared that a specific star, sphere, or angel had spoken to them and commanded them: Serve me in this manner. He would then relate a mode of service [telling them:] Do this, do not do this.

Thus these practices spread throughout the world.

As the years passed, [God's] glorious and awesome name was forgotten by the entire population.

(This was the world Avraham Avinu was born into.)

Abraham was forty years old when he became aware of his Creator. When he recognized and knew Him, he began to formulate replies to the inhabitants of Ur Kasdim and debate with them, telling them that they were not following a proper path.

...he began to call out in a loud voice to all people and inform them.... He would go out and call to the people, gathering them in city after city and country after country, until he came to the Land of Canaan. ...he would explain to each one of them according to their understanding, until they turned to the path of truth.

...He...composed texts about it, and taught it to Isaac [who] taught it to others...and also taught Jacob and appointed him as a teacher.

[Jacob] taught others and turned [the hearts] of all those who gathered around him [to God]. He also taught all of his children. He selected Levi and appointed him as the leader. He established him [as the head of] the academy to teach them the way of God and observe the mitzvot of Abraham.

(Then we went down into Egypt.)

...Within a short time, the fundamental principle that Abraham had planted would have been uprooted, and the descendants of Jacob would have returned to the errors of the world and their crookedness. Because of God's love for us, and to uphold the oath He made to Abraham, our patriarch, He brought forth Moses, our teacher, the master of all prophets, and sent him [to redeem the Jews]. After Moses, our teacher, prophesied, and God chose Israel as His inheritance, He crowned them with mitzvot and informed them of the path to serve Him, [teaching them] the judgement prescribed for idol worship and all those who stray after it.  (Rambam, Hilchot Avodat Kochavim v'Chukkoteihem, ch. 1)

...In general, people have limited powers of understanding, and not all minds are capable of appreciating the truth in its fullness. [Accordingly,] were a person to follow the thoughts of his heart, it is possible that he would destroy the world because of his limited understanding. (Rambam, Hilchot Avodat Kochavim v'chukkoteihem, ch. 2)

Today, the tools of destruction are unrestrained chesed and ahavat chinam.  Because of these two, it has become impossible to maintain Israel's holiness and purity - her separateness.  Since the days of Shechem, there have been gentiles who wanted to mix in with the Family of Israel.

And Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city, and they spoke to the people of their city, saying,"These men are peaceful with us, and they will dwell in the land and do business there, and the land behold it is spacious enough for them. We will take their daughters for ourselves as wives, and we will give them our daughters." (Genesis 33:20-21)

But we were forbidden from the very beginning to mix with the gentiles:

"I am Hashem, your God, Who has separated you from the nations.  ...I have separated you from the nations to be Mine." (Vayikra 20:24,26)

"You shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughter to his son nor take his daughter for your son." (Devarim 7:3)

This does not go down well with those who preach against separation and divisions and discrimination among peoples. They invented a worldwide religion based on the principle that among their adherents all are equal and no differences exist:

(New Testament) "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one...."

(New Testament) "Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate.... But now...you who once were far away have been brought near....[by the one] who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside...the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace....Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,...."

They preach a 'god of love' who sacrificed himself for the sins of mankind saying that man was powerless before sin.  In this religion, God is no longer ONE for He is ahavat chinam with no justice whatever. In this religion, no barriers or differences are allowed.  All are equal and everything will be forgiven. This is the religion of unrestrained chesed and its god is not HKB"H whose chesed is tempered by justice and whose justice is tempered by chesed. This is the religion of the "alien culture" which seeks to  assimilate all.

IN EVERY GENERATION, FALSE PROPHETS AND DECEIVERS HAVE GONE OUT TO WREAK HAVOC AND DESTRUCTION IN THE WORLD. TODAY IS NO DIFFERENT.

(Devarim 13:2-4)  If there should stand up in your midst a prophet (or a rabbi) or a dreamer of a dream, and he will produce to you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes about, of which he spoke to you, saying, "Let us follow gods of others that you did not know and we will worship them!" --- do not hearken to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of a dream, for Hashem, your God, is testing you to know whether you love Hashem, your God, with all your heart and soul.

In these days, many of our people are attracted to the 'values' of the foreign, alien culture which dominates the western world (including Israel).  Some of them come, saying they've had a new revelation and others come, saying they've rediscovered ancient knowledge, but it all runs counter to the Torah and to the tradition received from our fathers.

You must know and understand and take to heart that "Hashem, your God, is testing you to know whether you love Hashem, your God, with all your heart and soul."

In the coming days, God willing, we will look at a few specific examples.