My Thoughts on Erev Sukkot 5771

14 Tishrei 5771

Today, I was thinking about how we really are in the midst of a redemptive process. Recently, I read a story about the British Mandate period---how they wouldn't let the immigrants land here and then they were gone and we had Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael and now all the immigrants we want (and many we don't want) can come at will.

I was reading about how the British wouldn't let Jews blow the shofar at the conclusion of Yom Kippur at the Kotel and then we lost Yerushalayim to Jordan and couldn't get to the Kotel at all for nineteen years.

Then we got Yerushalayim back and we can do whatever we want at the Kotel, but we in essence lost the Temple Mount.

Just as surely as we have been making this steady progress toward complete redemption, so the Temple Mount will one day be back in our hands as well and we will see the Third Temple built on its holy site and we will bring our offerings up to Hashem three times a year---at Pesach, at Shavuot and at Sukkot! That time is not very far off at all.

Zeh zeman simchateinu---this is the time of our joy. A chag sameach to all of you!

Better Late than Never

Just found this in my inbox from Rav Nachman Kahana. A few days late, but still worth the read...

BS"D Yom Kippur 5771

The year 5771 has begun, but it’s yet too early to judge if it entered as a lamb or a lion - time will tell. The alphabetical symbols for the numerals 5771 are:

תשע"א
which, in my mind, serves as a double acrostic. The first is:

תהא שנת עלייה ארצה
May this year be one of mass aliya to our land. The second acrostic will come later.

But for now, the first will serve perfectly to express my blessings to all my brothers and sisters that HaShem should bless them with desire and ability to close the historical circle on their families’ personal 2000 year exile and come home.

Dear friends: The following story is probably familiar to you from previous writings, but I repeat it here because its lesson should not be forgotten.

There was once a man who sought absolute truth, and it was his habit in every place to ask if anyone there knew the truth of life?

One townsman replied that when he was a young child, his father told him that on the mountain lived a woman who knew the truth. The man ascended the mountain where he saw a woman standing before a cave. She was the ugliest person he had ever seen. Her age could have easily been 100 or 120. Any beauty which might have been hers was long ago lost, for she was a pitiful sight. He asked her, "Are you the woman who knows the truth? She replied that she was the personification of truth in the world. The young man was so enraptured by the woman's wisdom and revelations on every subject. After several months, he informed her that he must return to civilization.

She agreed, and when he was about to leave, she said to the young man, "Remember to tell everyone that I am young and beautiful."

This story comes to teach us that often it is difficult (if not almost impossible) to face the blatant truth, but in our attempts to soften the sting, we often pervert the absolute truth.

Yom Kippur is "pay-up" time. During the year, HaShem "slackens the leash" to permit us a degree of freedom to choose our way in life. But then, comes Yom Kippur and we are required to confess our mistakes and request forgiveness. A common illustration of this is your local supermarket. You enter, pushing a cart into which you are free to place any ridiculous assortment of items - and neither the manager nor any one of the staff will criticize or limit your choices. But at some point, you will stand before the cashier and remove each item - one by one - and pay!

When I will stand before HaShem on this Yom Kippur, as I have done in previous ones, I will employ the three sided triangle of teshuva: vidui (confession), charata (regret) and kabala le’atid (resolutions not to repeat these sins). But within the unfortunate totality of my shortcomings, I can truthfully state before the Almighty that I never denied the truth of the Torah, nor have I ever acted in any way that could be construed as negating one iota of the written or oral Torah.

Unfortunately, this claim cannot be made by people in the galut. Indeed, the more observant and the more erudite the individual, the greater is the degree of denial of the basic concepts of the Torah. And when taken to its logical extreme, their conduct has life threatening implications for the Jews in Eretz Yisrael.

I will explain.

The fanatical, homicidal adherents of the Moslem religion, together with many other peoples and nations, demand that we withdraw from the Temple Mount. They point to the two imposing Moslem buildings on the Mount - the Golden Dome and the Al Aksa Mosque - each over 1000 years old; and conclude that we have no legitimate claim over the Mount. Their claim is corroborated by the historical fact that for 2000 years the Jewish presence in the Holy City was either sparse or non-existent.

The reply of observant Jews is that HaShem, Creator of heaven and earth, presented the Mount solely to the Jewish nation to be the eternal site of His holy temples - those of the past and the one in the future.

The same fanatical, homicidal adherents of the Moslem religion, together with many other peoples and nations, demand that we withdraw from the major areas of Biblical Eretz Yisrael, such as Yerushalayim, Shechem, Chevron, Bet-Lechem and Yericho in favor of a ragtag, unaffiliated, disengaged rabble who came to Eretz Yisrael 100 years ago to find work, and were artificially welded together under the name "Palestinians" by the leftist Israeli press with the compliance and endorsement of foreign gentile factors.

They point to areas which were Arab villages in the past and are today kibbutzim or moshavot.

The reply of observant Jews is that HaShem, Creator of heaven and earth, presented the land solely to the Jewish nation to be our eternal, sanctified homeland.

The fanatical, homicidal adherents of the Moslem religion, together with many other peoples and nations, claim that we Israelis are the last vestiges of imperialism in the world, demanding that each one of us return to his country of origin, and restore the land to its rightful owners - the Bedouin, the murderous Chamas and Chizballa, and Persia-Iran.

The reply of observant Jews is that HaShem, Creator of heaven and earth, presented this land solely to the Jewish nation to be our eternal sanctified homeland.

The claims of the gentile and our God-centered retort are stated in Rashi’s first commentary to the Chumash (Book of Beraishit). There are no surprises here. The Torah opens with the episode of creation in order to announce to the world - in every generation - that HaShem created all, so it is His right to do with the entire creation whatever He wishes. And it is His expressed wish that the entire Holy Land be the sole possession of the Jewish nation.

This is our tradition, our heritage, our belief and our hope. HaShem has presented this great gift to the Jewish people, and we are commanded to establish here a God-centered society based on Halacha, as expressed in the written Torah and expounded by the oral Torah.

Now, if your father presented you with a gift of a huge, fully-furnished mansion, with the latest model, silver-plated limousine in the driveway, with an olympic-sized swimming pool and two tennis courts in the back - would you not say "thank you" and move in?

If you would not move in, nor drive the car nor take advantage of any of the great luxuries, what would your father or the neighbors conclude?

The obvious ones are that either you don’t particularly value the gifts, or you harbor great animosity towards the giver. The third possibility of insanity is never far behind.

Je accuse! The message that resounds today to the gentile ear from any and every observant Jew in the galut, who casually or not casually dismisses the historic opportunity to rebuild our national-religious life in Eretz Yisrael is that the Jew does not value the gift (the Land) or he does not value the giver (Hashem). There is no escaping this conclusion.

The enemies of Israel have picked it up very quickly and it has emboldened them to attack, murder, destroy and plan for the liquidation of the Jewish presence in the Holy Land.

If learned rabbis, with hundreds of students, and Grand Rabbis with thousands of disciples stay away from Eretz Yisrael, then the land is obviously not an essential part of Jewish tradition. Hence the Jews who are here have no disclaimers to counter the historical facts of the Moslem and we are usurpers of land that does not belong to us, because the only real legitimate claim we have is based on the Almighty’s gift to us of this land.

Had religious Jews come here en mass then world history would be today radically different. We would have today a religious government, and many of our internal problems and strife would be eliminated.

But because of some scratch in the brain, religious Jews in the galut have adopted the irrational, even Christian oriented (but comfortable), belief that HaShem opened wide the gates of the Holy Land to invite the Arabs, Druze, Beduins, Christians etc., while His chosen people will have to wait for the Mashiach.

I am so embarrassed whenever I hear a ben Torah from the galut expressing this idea. But I am mortified and humiliated to learn that he is quoting in the name of his spiritual mentor.

To return to the opening part of this message that deals with the second acrostic of



תשע"א
I suggest the following:



תהא שנת עבודת א-לוקים
meaning: May this year be one of serving the Almighty

The two acrostics complement each other. The first designates this year as one of great aliya to Eretz Yisrael, and the second designates the year to one of serving Hashem.

The Gemara (Ketuvot 110b) states that a Jew who lives outside of Eretz Yisrael is considered as if he worships idolatry.

May this coming year bring about a great wave of teshuva, when millions of Jews cease to worship idolatry as they return home to Eretz Yisrael.

Gemar Chatima Tova
Nachman Kahana

We are our own worst enemy

All of our problems stem from one of two things. Either we don't understand what Hashem wants from us or we simply refuse to give Him what He wants from us.

Here is a case in point. It comes from an article that I was reading yesterday---PA: Give us a State or It's War.

Problem #1: Most of us do not understand that we are not supposed to allow non-Jews to live here at the present time. Even geriei toshav cannot be accepted except during the yovel year. Yet our leaders are talking about allowing (another) Judenrein Arab state to set up within our borders while letting so-called Israeli Arabs continue to live within whatever borders are left to us.

Quote: Senior Palestinian Authority negotiator Nabil Shaath ... said that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would undermine the PA's demand for the “right of return,” which would grant Israeli citizenship to the millions of descendants of Arabs who fled Israel during its War of Independence.

He also claimed that accepting a Jewish state “will directly threaten the Muslim and Christian Palestinians in Israel.”

The PA has demanded that no Jewish residents remain in the territory it claims as the location of a future Arab state, including any Israelis in Judea and Samaria who would be willing to become PA citizens. Arab leaders in the PA and elsewhere have insisted that Israel cease all construction for Judea and Samaria Jews in order for negotiations to proceed.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak backed the PA view in an interview with Channel 1 broadcast Saturday night. “I say to Israeli citizens, including Jews, Muslims and others, that there is no such thing as a state in which all the citizens are Jews,” he said.

But in Egypt, every citizen is an Egyptian, right? The author of the article obviously thinks he is making a case for the Jewish state with the following short analysis, but there is something critically wrong with it. Can you see it?

While the Arab League and Mubarak argued against labeling a state “Jewish,” many Arab League nations – among them Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Libya – are officially Muslim countries. In Syria the president is required by law to be a Muslim, and the same is true for the Prime Minister of Lebanon.

Problem # 1 (again): We do not properly understand what it means to be Jewish. The article sees it primarily as a religion and equates "Jewish" with "Muslim." And this is a very big mistake. Being Muslim makes one a follower of the Mohameddan religion. Being Jewish makes you a citizen of the Jewish nation whether in its native land or outside of it. The prophet says (paraphrased) 'was there ever such a thing like this before, where a God came and took a nation from within another nation?' God took us and molded us into a nation and gave us a Book of Instruction (The Torah) for how to live as a nation in our own land, which He also gave to us. The Torah is our constitution and we need no other. There should be no conflict between being a Jewish state as well as "a state of all of its citizens" because only Jews can rightfully be citizens of the Jewish nation.

Just like every other nation requires prospective citizens to pass an entrance exam, so does the Jewish nation. It's called conversion and it's open to anyone who can pass the test. That's exactly why it's perfectly ok to say that Israel is for JEWS ONLY and ONLY JEWS can be citizens. This came down to us from the Creator Himself.

Problem #2: It is not up to us to decide if it sounds right to us or if we are comfortable with the idea or not. It is only up to us to obey.

We are unique in all the world that our nation is also a family and that we do not practice a religion, but simply follow the Instruction Book given to us by the Creator of the World for how to conduct not only our private lives, but also our NATIONAL life---how the government should be set up and run; how to choose judges; how to care for the poor; how to allocate the land, etc..

What a Kiddush Hashem it was when the entire country closed down on Yom Kippur ---no tv, no radio, everything closed, even the airport. Mi kamocha Am Yisrael!! Now, if only we would be so diligent every Shabbat of the entire year. And especially in the realm of who is allowed to be a citizen of Israel.

If you learn nothing else from this blog post, please understand these two very important concepts. Being Jewish is NOT a matter of religion, it is NATIONALITY. And ONLY JEWS can properly be citizens of a Jewish State.

G'MAR TOV!

Erev Yom Kippur

9 Tishrei 5771

Every tailor and seamstress knows that the "wrong" side of the fabric looks nothing like the "right" side. Sometimes it is even an entirely different color altogether.

Hashem shows us the "wrong" side of the fabric most of the time for His own reasons which I won't try to go into here, but it is possible to get a glimpse of the "right" side occasionally. There we see the whole beautiful harmonious pattern in all its glory.

Take for example this week's "peace" talks. Clinton and Mitchell were here in Jerusalem doing their damnedest to begin a major dismantling of the State of Israel. They plan to have the borders of Palestine set in three months. Before that was even finished, Mitchell was rushing off to Syria with Bibi's map for a "withdrawal" from the Golan Heights. Bibi and Barak are working overtime it seems to conduct the firesale of all time.

All of this would be pretty depressing if we did not also see that this all plays right into Hashem's plan to bring the geulah shleimah to His weary children. Hashem knows and we should also, that the Arabs absolutely do not want to make peace with Israel and coexist with us. They want us gone and completely replaced with Palestine. The faster the West pushes them to end the conflict, the quicker will come Gog uMagog---the world's ultimate plan to eliminate Israel. At the moment that the West would impose its "peace" the Arabs will absolutely go to war. That is guaranteed.

What can we do? Don't lose the momentum at the end of the Aserei Ymei HaTeshuva. Continue the process of teshuva every single day. Continue to perfect your middot and look for every opportunity to perform a mitzvah or chesed. Proceed with your life in faith and the joy of knowing that Hashem IS King and everything He does is for our good. And never lose hope that the geulah could come at any moment, just when we least expect it.

We shouldn't be too upset or worried about the trials and tribulations that assail the hero (Israel) because we already know how the story ends...happily ever after!

I'll end with this inspirational story The Shofar and the Wall from the nice people at Chabad.org.

We should all be blessed with a g'mar chatima tova and the geulah shleimah even at this very moment!

"BP Oil" Update

Have you been wondering what's up with that BP oil well disaster? Like...did they ever fix it? Well, as of two days ago, they were still at it:

BP resumes drilling relief well in Gulf as step toward permanent seal
By Vivian Kuo, CNN
September 13, 2010

(CNN) -- BP said it resumed drilling Monday on a relief well, as efforts to permanently seal the previously leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well appeared to be entering their final stages.

A few weeks ago the government announced that all the oil was gone ... just up and disappeared ... eaten up by bacteria and the sun. Now, you know better than to listen to anything the government tells you, don't you?

"Disappeared" Spilled Gulf Oil Discovered, Found Residing On Bottom Of GOM
In recent weeks the administration has been fanfaring the tremendous success of discovering far less spilled oil in the GoM than one would expect. The fallacious conclusion derived from this "fact" by Obama's henchmen is that the oil just went poof and disappeared, with even the president going spelunking in the GoM to prove just how safe it was. Well, we hope he didn't step on the ocean floor, because a new report by ABC discloses that "miles of oil is sitting on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico." It gets worse:

'Professor Samantha Joye of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, who is conducting a study on a research vessel just two miles from the spill zone ...said the oil has not disappeared, but is on the sea floor in a layer of scum. "We're finding it everywhere that we've looked. The oil is not gone," Joye said. "It's in places where nobody has looked for it."

..."If we're seeing two and half inches of oil 16 miles away, God knows what we'll see close in -- I really can't even guess other than to say it's going to be a whole lot more than two and a half inches," Joye said.

This oil remaining underwater has large implications for the state of sea life at the bottom of the gulf.

Joye said she spent hours studying the core samples and was unable to find anything other than bacteria and microorganisms living within.

"There is nothing living in these cores other than bacteria," she said. "I've yet to see a living shrimp, a living worm, nothing."

Cute!

To my fellow bloggers & readers...shana tova!

Today is "Qud's Day"

Jerusalem Day paves the way for Israel's collapse

The late Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeinei declared Jerusalem Day to mark the last Friday of Ramadan and called for world rallies in favor of the Palestinians and against Israel.

Ah! The voices of our enemies. Some are strident and hateful, while others are soft and diplomatic.

The really interesting thing about this picture is the joining of Eisav, Yishmael and the Erev Rav---the most deadly combination of all.

But, take heart! "The Holy One of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps."

Shabbat shalom!