I'm no גדול הדור or נביא but it seems uncanny that a disaster that will inevitably unite the country, occurs after the most divisive period in the country in recent times
Notleast the disgraceful scenes בשעת נעילה
(קשה עלי פרידתכם, said by Hashem on שמיני עצרת, is explained by some to refer to פירוד between segments of Jewry)
"The strike was intended to hit Israel while it appeared distracted by internal political divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government."
"Some observers have pointed to unprecedented societal divisions wrought by the government’s plans to overhaul the judiciary and attendant protests as having given Hamas the impression that Israel was weakened and ripe for attack."
Armchair nonsense. There's never a time when Israel isn't dealing with internal division, and never a time when its enemies aren't plotting to attack it. The fighting over judicial reform didn't prompt the attack, but it makes all the Hillel Halkins of the world, who forgot who our REAL enemies are, look like fools. [Edit - and I see now intelligence already shows this attack was planned more than a year ago, long before the protests.]
The only question right now is how massive the response. Most seem to feel it has to be overwhelming, nothing less than 50,000 dead. No sophisticates, no overthinking it, none of this brainiac "Oh, we can't do that" stupidity. Do it, and deal with condemnations later. When we take our own counsel, like bombing the reactor and the preemptive strike of '67, it works out. When we listen to others, like Oslo and the Gaza expulsion, this is what we get back. For God's sake, how long will Israel fail to learn from history. Turn Gaza into a parking lot, and do it now.
Heads of government have been assassinated. Jews committed piguim against other Jews. Gush katif. We do have more extreme examples of division in the history of our country. The attack is unprecedented, the level of division isn't. The two don't correlate.
"There will be plenty of time for recriminations and fallout later, at both the political and operational level. "
(Speculation warning!)
Maybe the "later" is a good thing. The sooner the international "community" pressures for a cease fire, the sooner the reckoning will come. Bibi will not survive the fallout; his only option for (temporary) political survival is to ignore the inevitable international pressure for a ceasefire and to not to abandon the war too prematurely as he has done in the past.
May the A-lmighty protect your daughter together with all other soldiers in Israel.
May the IDF, with the help of G-d, quickly free the people of Gaza from the Hamas regime, bring the captives home safely, provide comfort to the hundreds of bereaved families, send a quick and full recovery to the thousands of injured, and bring a long lasting peace to the residents of the South so never again will the need to run to bomb shelters in the night, and bring peace to all of עם ישרשאל.
Rabbi, regarding you suggestion for mental health services I am in touch with the head of a large Jewish mental health org in the US who would like to offer services. please message me misaacson [at] gmail
1. Being Nosei B'ol, Gevald...! Davening! Being Marbeh Zechuyos!
2. Getting off the computer asap and doing that.
3. A great Israeli Rosh Yeshiva said about how the YK war came about, that it's explicit in Avos that among other things, Ivus Hadin causes war, and not long before the YK war a terrible Ivus Hadin had occurred with the implicit(?) support of the Israeli gov't . (IOW, he looked outwards. Did he also look inwards? I'm sure.)
4. Why are people busy with their SINGLE causer? What about zeh v'zeh garmu? What about Lo Nechtam G'zar Dinam Ela Al Hagezel by the Mabul, that there were multiple factors
5. Looking outward while looking inward is fine, and when done very properly, important.
"And the fourth division [of speech] is the beloved, and that is speech in praise of intellectual virtues or dispositional virtues and in disgrace of both types of vice - to awaken the soul to the virtues with stories and songs, and to prevent the vices in these same ways. ... to disgrace the bad about their vices, so that their action and their memory be disgraced in the eyes of people and that they distance themselves from them and not act according to their practices."
6. An element in Bibi's Uman speech, and other of his public statements, (such as when French Jewry experienced terrorism and he invited them to Israel), is that thanks to the state, Israel is the safest place. With this, according to my conjecture, he opened the door for the Midas Hadin to settle accounts with us for our sins, and he be chastised.
I do not want to cause unrelated debates, but what do you as a rationalist think your davening will achieve for the safety or success of israeli soldiers?
btw, can you share your thoughts on this situation going on? i'd love to hear your perspective. if you want you can email me at davidschulmannn@gmail.com
Hamas sees itself abandoned, so they started this surprise attack, utilizing the internal israeli divisions.
Hamas promised not to harm civilians (which for them includes only old people and children). All other israelis, since they are serving in the army, are military combatants and in hamas' view necessary targets, hence they shot these people on the rave party.
(There have been rumours on twitter about israeli women raped, but I haven't see any evidence. The story of 40 beheaded babies seems to be false, too and a picture of caged israeli children turned out to be an old picture of palestinian children).
Cuz Hamas goal with all these hostages is to get as many palestinians as possible out of prison. Last time israel released a 1000 palestinians for one captured soldier, imagine then now.
I think Hamas' strategy is wrong.
In Islamic Law, there is nothing legally wrong in killing any armed zionist in a state of war (whether woman or man, whether rabbi or layman and it doesn't have to be a soldier of the regular army tzahal, but even e.g. an armed settler like those in the west bank).
However, this indiscriminate killing and bombing is a war-crime, considering that many of the 1000 killed israelis are Arab Muslims (mostly the bedouins who live there in the south of israel) and who do not serve the army, rendering hamas' justification futile.
Non-Muslims are, in Islamic Law, in one of 4 possible categories. In three of these (dhimmi, mu'ahad, mustaman) it is prohibited to kill them, in one (harbi) only armed combatants can be killed (which could include women, old people and monks, with the condition that they are themselves armed and trying to kill you, but it is usually prohibited to kill them https://sunnah.com/muslim:1744b).
For references from classical Islamic jurists on war, see the book al-Badaai as-Sania from the jurist al-Kasani (12th century) https://shamela.ws/index.php/book/8183/1832 and the book al-Mughni from Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi (13th century) https://shamela.ws/book/8463/4225 and the book Ahkam ahli dhimma by Ibn al-Qayyim (14th century).
Moving away from the strategy, the logic behind the attack itself is this: israel is built on zionism, the idea that jews must get an independent jewish state in zion i.e. palestine. But for such a state, one inevitably needs a majority jewish population which requires the ethnic cleansing or even genocide of the current majority population i.e. Arab muslims and Arab xtians. Some of them can stay (so called arab israelis) but most of them must go away.
Hence, for hamas, zionism is an irredemable ideology and its construct israel must be destroyed.
Emotionally I understand and even support this view. I have nothing against a jewish state in palestine per se, if there had been a realistic solution made by both sides without ethnic cleasing and personally I would even be ready to grant jews a specific place on the Temple mountain for davening.
But purely logically and legally speaking, I think that Hamas' attack was wrong.
Rafael, can you please explain how the Hamas leaders calling for a "GLOBAL day of jihad" has anything to do with seeing all Israelis as threats, as this concerns all Jews in the world.
Shulman here is handling most of your comments, but I want to know this: Hamas sees all Israelis between 18 and 67 as military targets. Is that also what the average civilian in Gaza believes? Even if not, if Israeli's were to apply the reverse logic, and look at Gaza they way they look at Israel, wouldn't that mean for every person in Gaza that Israeli's would look at as a threat?
My point is, if it is an equal 2 way struggle for survival, no side is necessarily wrong and can work with the same rules in an effort to annihilate each other as rules of war. I am not a fan of that, but otherwise this would be a double standard. It doesn't look like anything will change (unless they adopt your approach, something brought up in the 30's by Dr Jacob Dehan and was killed for it).
I hope I am not coming out sounding like I am advocating that, I am simply saying that if this logic is being used to identify the enemy it is either barbaric or right, not simply a wrong strategy or understanding the way you put it.
I do not know whether the average Gazan civilian thinks the same. I haven't seen any representative surveys on that. I do not know what the average israeli thinks, either. But certainly, the Hamas and Israeli political leadership do treat this as a 2 way struggle for survival. For netanyahu, this disgrace is also a struggle for his political survival.
I don't know what the average Gazan thinks for sure, but in 2006 Hamas got 45% of the vote, seemingly supporting Hamas positions. Fatah also got 41%, I don't think that party thinks any different than it's founder, Yassar Arafat. Could be they don't have much of a choice and they are voting them in for other benefits that they prioritize, I'd be curious to hear if that is the case.
As far as the last comment, I agree that almost all politicians think about one thing only, and that is themselves. However, being that the best thing for their selfish state is satisfying their constituents thereby earning their popularity, that is a good motivation to do the will of the people. If most people didn't agree with him he wouldn't be doing it.
What do you mean by "this disgrace"? the conflict in general, the atrocities, or the way the country's divided?
He was completely taken by surprise, unprepared and bamboozled. The army arrived 4 hours after the shootings begun. Some even called for netanyahus resignation or talk about conspiracy. Instead, bibi was busy throuhgout the year with pushing a divisive and unpopular judicial reform that could conveniently help him and other convicted ministers. Remember when his moronic drunken son yair in front of a brothel was recorded talking about his fathers' dubious deals with oligarchs? One might dismiss yairs words as drunken juvenile nonsense, but netanyahu immediately then tried to pass a law banning recordings like that. Nobody denies that israel needs a judicial reform, but this one goes to the other extreme and its a part of netanyahus self-serving pattern.
at least some the rapings have been confirmed by videos which i won't go into detail here, but just one example of many, one video was shown on cnn, and they spoke with the mother of the girl in the video, shani louk, and got permission to air it to show the atrocities - which makes it sound pretty real... we are always cautious when watching these kinds of things that perhaps its not a valid source, but there were definitely some confirmed.
the beheading is hearsay right now and we may never know if true, but there were definitely atrocities that were confirmed very clearly (as things go, meaning through solid journalism).
many israeli's btw don't support this whole occupation thing as a principle because of the conflicts it's causing. many prominent rabbis were against the establishment of a state because it isn't necessarily the appropriate hishtadlus (human efforts) to be the safe haven the Zionists claimed it would be. but we have no problem living there and even appreciate having what we believe to be our homeland back after all this time.
for the most part things have become so radicalized that at this point a two state solution is simply impossible, which is what happens when we stop being able to trust each other to make a treaty, and this goes both ways of course. but at this point with Hamas and Hezbollah and others, with Iran backing them, it really is an them or them situation and no one knows how to get out of this mess:(
as in all politics, we never really know who to trust and we all have our biases, and i hope this can be resolved without more pain
i also understand that many Palestinians do not back Hamas and we have nothing against them (you)
as a side, it seems unfair to say that any random citizen of israel shoudld b fair game as long as they are armed, because they are only armed for protection. because they live close that is a crime?
and the next q is, what is israel's response supposed to be now, but to fight back?
If the crimes are true I condemn them. You will notice that Muslims do not have a problem with condemning crimes. Most of the time we are just calling out fake news, exaggerated or decontextualized reports and especially double standards. In other words, just as we are condemning crimes, it would be nice if e.g. the chief rabbinate were to condemn the thousands of murdered palestinian women and children over the years.
Instead I saw orthodox rabbis making analogies to amalek (and you know better than me the halakha regarding their fate). Palestinians themsleves do not want a genocide, neither the xtian nor the Muslim ones.
You can imagine that most if not all of these Hamas fighters have dead relatives murdered by zionists and that this fueled their hatred.
P. S. Read my statement again. I said "in a state of war", I am not saying jews in israel can't own weapon against crime.
i think most of the rabbis comparing to amalek are mostly comparing hamas to them, not palestinians in general. (also they usually don't mean it in a halachic sense, just like slifkin has been (wrongly) compared to amalek) but many of them don't know that there is a difference. i myself don't know what the classic Muslim take is on what they want in life. are Hamas just a true religious group standing for true Muslim values, and the 'tame' Muslims are less religious? or are there different takes on how to read the Qur'an? what si going on there?
we, for example, want our religion to become clear to the world and we are pained that other people turn to other ideas of God with different rules and laws and desires. including the Muslim religion (we won't debate this now, just sharing our perspective). we await the day when things become clear and Muslims, xtians, atheists and all alike recognize the Jewish God as supreme (including believers recognizing Him more constantly, directly and to a more powerful degree). but we don't do anything about it except perfect ourselves and our relationship with Him. we believe that if we would perfect ourselves in our relationship with Him, He will figure out the rest. so Jews in general have never been a threat to any government (until this occupation).
but what do Muslims believe? what do authentic, really religious Muslims believe? is it their place to make themselves on top? to force the word to recognize their truth? if yes, isn't Hamas doing the right thing in your eyes? (in the sense that killing infidels is like our killing amalek)
Of course we would like Islam to be ruling religion of the world. A liberal wishes for a liberal world order, a communist for a communist one, american american one, russian russian one and chinese chinese one.
He it is Who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religion however much idolaters may be averse to it.
Qur'an 61:9
When you believe that your values, which lead to what you call perfection, are morally correct and even from a universal God, Who is the Creator of the entire cosmos, then of course you would wish that Law to be ruling in the world. It doesn't mean that all individuals have to abandon their own beliefs. Their communities have their autonomies and rules and the individual will not be forced to abandon his beliefs, simply because true belief necessitate ikhlas (sincerity). But the ruling supreme law and measure for everything is of course Gods true will. Hence I mentioned Ibn Qayyims book on the laws regarding non Muslim in the Caliphate.
The reason why Muslims scholars criticise Hamas is because they are implementing this goal in the wrong way. They are not criticising the goal itself.
There is a principle in Islamic Law called الحكم على الشيء فرع عن تصوره which basically means in order to judge a thing you need a full understanding of its reality.
As I explained, Hamas didn't have that full understanding. They classified anybody living on the other side of the fence between the age of 18-67 as a reservist and hence a necessary military target. This is wrong and does injustice to the demographic diversity of that part of israel.
Hamas also calculated, based on previous experience, that tzahal will not bomb gaza indiscrimnately because of the hostages. This assumption, though reasonable, turned out to be false, too
I would say the same problem goes for rabbis who are paskening against all Palestinians collectively.
But as a jew, you do expect all goyim to one day bow in front of the jewish God (and of course you do). So there comes forcing beliefs from your side too. And always remember that the seven nations who previously inhabited Kanaan tasted that coercion too in bloody ways, just like the 70% of jews will, who are chilonim and mechalelim shabbat and not eating kosher (and you know the halakha regarding such crimes).
"My personal, practical understanding is that Islamic scholarly theory plays little or no role in the Hamas guidebook." I agree with you rabbi goldberg.
If you mean by "different approaches" a possible islamic legal argument for a recognition of israel, I think that palazzi is wrong for defending the current zionist entity.
As I said in other comments, in essence, we have nothing against a jewish state per se, provided that both sides agreed on realistic functioning states without ethnic cleansing.
God does affirm in the Qur'an that He gave the holy Land to the israelites. However, He also constantly points out that jews should convert to Islam and accept Muhammad saws as Gods Final Messenger,. Thats an important point that palazzi leaves out. Comparing israel to what the israelites got is a false equivalence, too.
Ismail al-Faruqi was a palestinian politologist. He used to be an arab nationalist and supremacist. However, he renounced that and made Islam his sole political, legal and ideological view. Besides the inevitable zionist ethnic cleansing and the theological differences between Islam and judaism, Faruqi identified a third problem with israel that palazzi did not consider. The zionist project and entity called israel is not religious anyway (a zionist who even disbelieves in the Torah cares even less about the Qur'an as a reason for the establishment of Israel). Its a secularist, nationalist (and at that time socialist) state, that Muslims could never accept.
Faruqi asked for the renouncing of arab nationalism, secularism and remnants of colonial law in these contemporary postcolonial artificial arab states that we have today (I think he would agree on the establishment of a unified Caliphate).
In the same token, he argued that israel must become a rabbinical medinat halakha and get rid of the socialist, secularist and democratic zionist baggage. In such a case, an Islamic state and a jewish state could continuously live in peace together in a confederation (whoch would mean a state similar to the shengen accord we have in europe). Such a jewish state, where jews follow jewish law, Muslims Sharia, xtians whatever they want, that would be acceptable. Cuz historically, thats how Caliphates worked: Muslims have their law, jews their and the only thing was that jews had to pay the jizya tax, which did not apply in times where the Caliphate could not military protect the jewish population. this was especially the case at border regions. If the siraelis set up their own army and protection, one might drop the jizya too.
I think this plan would be reasonable taking the current situation into account (at least from my Muslims and your jewish perpsective, a secularist israeli or secularist atheist arab,might be siffering a heart attack reading this)
But as long as the whole "oNly dEmocRacy iN tHe miDdle EasT" propaganda trope continues, israel is considered a foreign, colonialist and implanted element
I agree with the second half of your comment (if I agreed with the first half I wouldn't be Jewish) in theory, but as it is obvious, given the current situation we are way past such a possibility. We'd have to Brainwash both sides for many years.
as far as the only democracy thing you mention, I always thought it was Americans who came up with that at a point when most countries in the middle east were dominated to some level by dictators or terrorists. While some things may be different now, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon Libya, Jordan Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, all have this problem in their recent history.
Now if you mean that even Israel is not democratic because of Arabs lacking rights, which ones are you referring to? The ones living in Israel proper do, and the ones living in the West bank are not under Israel authority.
I mean, israel is an ethno state that needs ethnic cleansing and a discriminating immigration policy. Have you ever wondered why neo-nazis like richard spencer or nick fuentes praise israel explicity for that? I am a white european straight man and if I asked for similar things I would be branded a white supremacist (rightfully so) and you know the adl and souther poverty law center would warn everybody from me.
Kahane has written a lot about the irreconcilable differences betseen zionism and democracy. My point was, that even if israel were a true democracy, that would affirm it being a foreign, implanted and colonial state, cuz democracy is not an asian, african, australian, chinese or native-american or even eastern european phenomenon, but a western euoropean one. There were social and political circumstances in england beginning from the 13ht to the 19th century that gave birth to the democracy we today have (the german politologist dieter grosser wrote about that) and made it possible. But even the existence of these circumstances do not guarantee democracy (see german democracy that was replaced by the nazis through the votes of millions of germans). The Muslims world is united and defined by Islam and Shaira law, hence secularists and colonialists pushed for nationalism and tribalistic conflicts and established these artificial nation states. Add to that the lack of the particular circumstances, it is clear why democracy does not exist among arabs either.
אבל אם לא יזעקו ולא יריעו אלא יאמרו דבר זה ממנהג העולם אירע לנו וצרה זו נקרה נקרית. הרי זו דרך אכזריות וגורמת להם להדבק במעשיהם הרעים. ותוסיף הצרה צרות אחרות.
No one said that our religious and moral actions are not part of the equation.Noone excluded prayer and Tshuva from the equation. At the same time natural events and consequences are also part of the equation.Human actions and effort are crucial but not enough to overcome Jewish religious failures. We pray for G-d's chesed and His Rachmanut.
Note that well: the person is called an אכזר, a "cruel" person, not a רשע or a שוטה. I heard the reason in the name of R. Ruderman: bc such a person is insensible and unfeeling, and this is where the roots of cruelty lie. An inability to empathize or feel the suffering of others.
Slifkins rationalism, as he explains it, does not exclude prayer or other Torah concepts. He is a faithful Torah believing Jew.His position rejects mysticism as a regular answer to religious questions and understanding of important religious events. Of course payer is basic to our faith and in no way does his rationalism reject it.You are confusing his rationalism that rejects religion and spiritual actions.
Rafael, praying is just something to say that will offend almost no1. At a time like this, we can still use meaningless (to us) phrases. Stalin opened all the shuttered churches during ww2.
i'm actually on your side of the slifkin debate, but is this the place to yell at him, when you're literally screaming about setting aside our differences? that line he wrote bothered me too but right now Hamas is our enemy, not slifkin. he may have a different approach and may have even added that line but forgive and stick together please so we can focus on who is the real enemy and do what we need to have Hashem favor us, each with our own derech. becaue of slifkin i was able to easily give a fair amount of tzedaka which i'm sure helped many. let's keep our fighting out, even what we normally understand to be l'maan Hashem. right now the l'maan Hashem is to only argue about fundamentals and in a calm way and keep our eye on the ball. unity is not just a nice concept; it's part of teshuva with Hashem wants right now.
and i'm only saying this to you, not to those on this blog who have a real point to make about our derech, even if i disagree with their approach at this time. and i have only respect for you for doing what you feel is kvod Hashem, for real, i'm on your side, i'm just asking if we can try to come together here
thanks. may we see no more חילול כבוד שמים וישראל and may we see no more suffering
What exactly is it that I don’t know what I’m talking about? If you were honest, instead of just being dismissive, you’d buttress your position with a cogent response instead of simply saying that I be cancelled. That really doesn’t support your argument.
"Gedolei Torah, who know a lot more than you or me have made it clear that they hold that one can dedicate himself to full time learning and, al pi Halacha, he is exempt from the army in accordance to the psak of the Rambam."
These are the same Gedolim who believe that Rambam was of the view that Chazal were infallible in science. They don't have a clue what Rambam actually held and they don't really want to know.
No, the "zechus torah" of those who avoid their responsibilities is not remotely as important as the mobilization of the IDF. It's like people who learn Torah on erev Shabbos instead of helping their wives.
I think we're on the same page. Even Moshe Rabeinu had Yehoshua lead the war while he davened.
But for those who are not in the army, for whatever amount of reasons, our avoda is to strengthen our service of God as much as possible. And that should be strongly stressed as the Jewish response to an עת צרה
Those in Yeshiva don’t even reach the soles of the boots of those who place their lives on the line. And I’m talking about ruchniyot. Let’s see them take a stand to protect others. Whose sacrifices do you think HaShem “appreciates” more.
And I promise you any of these bachurim would give their lives in a second rather than violate the Torah c'v. Like eating chazer bshaas hashmad. Or any other single issur or even heilige minhag yisroel.
I'm just curiously asking, has Rabbi Natan Slifkin served? Not his kids, but the Rabbi himself? If not, maybe join right now? ("They won't accept me" is a lame excuse. Go ahead and offer them your conscription.)
Second question: would the Museum ever have come about? Or would there be a different museum, one discussing the calibre of ammunition required to pierce the armour of a Russian T-80....
All of that aside, probably, if given a choice, many very kind and responsible Charedi Yeshiva students would actually like to serve. There are other issues preventing them- mostly political in nature. I cannot even place all of the blame on the Roshei Yeshivos. The Army leadership itself is very opposed to accommodating Charedi recruits in regular units. Go figure.
Hint: What it is that makes a person good at killing people, is not what makes a good Yeshiva Scholar.
Can we find other military responsibilities that are intellectual, and go alongside a Torah-studying lifestyle? It's an open question. But I think there are, and the IDF would know. That is where you should be looking.
--------
I just want to conclude with an analogy; one a little different from yours, of the Kollel Scholar who doesn't help with the Shabbos preparations. The Scholar wanted to help, but was told he must do so in a way that was contrary to either his beliefs or his abilities. He tried asking for some changes, but his wife flatly refused. After giving up hope, he went back to studying. While not perfect, it is far more accurate.
There are videos circulating right now of the Israeli army boasting how its fences and sophisticated defenses made Israel impregnable. And yet with bare bones equipment costing .00001% of the defense budget, they came right on through.
Nissim Black said it best, in a simple sentence: "We need the army, but the army needs God."
So where was god yesterday when Yidden needed him the most? During our recent Yom Kipur, it appears that your breast-beating supplications were insufficient to stir god’s empathy and altruism in Israel’s favor.
So which of god’s implorations were you deficient in? Was it Tshuvah or Tfillah or Tzedakah? Maybe all three or only 2 of the 3 or perhaps just 1. Wouldn’t it be nice for god to tell you which of the three supplications you were deficient in before deciding to kill thousands of blameless Yidden.
Uriah - this blog, for all its misguided opinions, is still a religious one. The blog host, all of us - אנחנו מאמינים בני מאמינים. If you have lost your faith, then I feel very bad for you, but you don't belong here any more. This is no longer your home.
BUT IF you are still, as I hope, hanging on, even if by a thread, and your angst is nothing more than lashing out at God as anguished Jews have done for thousands of years, then take heart. The ways of the Lord are inscrutable. We are simply too small and too temporal to see the big picture. All we can do is what we have been taught to do by the Torah itself, and by the prophets and the teachers through the millennia: pray to Him. He desires our prayer, and He listens.
Yes we are not guaranteed protection. As Yaacov was afraid of Esav ,perhaps his sin will forfeit G-d's protection.Yaacov took practical steps to protect his family and people,including Tefillah.
The mistake you make is in thinking that zechus Hatorah comes specifically from the people who should be serving in the army, as opposed to all the other people who are learning Torah
Fill up the coffee pots! Warm those chairs! Like they are really doing anything. 126 soldiers so far have paid the supreme price. They are cowered and shirkers.
Yeah, all that zechus hatorah didn’t deter Hamas from its genocidal butchery as is evidenced by all those useless zechusim throughout the years of holocaust.
All those thousands of yeshiva and kollel folks studying holy 4th century tort law didn’t count for a hill of beans, all those zechusim a worthless palaver of self delusion and pretext not to subject themselves to the dangers facing Israeli soldiers.
When levelheaded Jews see the idiocy spouted by Sender they make just one brucha every day — she’assani secular. And it’s one great reason that the majority of Jews are off the derech and want no association with chareidi/Orthodox society.
At another time, I'd argue with you. Now, I'd simply suggest you save your anger for the real enemy. Shalom, sister. In the truest meaning of the word.
everyone should see this - https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/a-voice-from-the-frontlines
it's not an anti slifkin blog. its an honest chareidi viewpoint
I'm no גדול הדור or נביא but it seems uncanny that a disaster that will inevitably unite the country, occurs after the most divisive period in the country in recent times
Notleast the disgraceful scenes בשעת נעילה
(קשה עלי פרידתכם, said by Hashem on שמיני עצרת, is explained by some to refer to פירוד between segments of Jewry)
May ה' send us ישועות ונחמות בקרוב
Are you victim blaming or did I miss something here?
Not victim blaming at all. Searching for meaning and hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.
Anyway, ever heard of יפשפש במעשיו
See here:
https://archive.ph/4VwiB
"The strike was intended to hit Israel while it appeared distracted by internal political divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government."
And here:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-liberman-open-to-emergency-unity-government-but-demand-say-in-waging-war/
"Some observers have pointed to unprecedented societal divisions wrought by the government’s plans to overhaul the judiciary and attendant protests as having given Hamas the impression that Israel was weakened and ripe for attack."
Armchair nonsense. There's never a time when Israel isn't dealing with internal division, and never a time when its enemies aren't plotting to attack it. The fighting over judicial reform didn't prompt the attack, but it makes all the Hillel Halkins of the world, who forgot who our REAL enemies are, look like fools. [Edit - and I see now intelligence already shows this attack was planned more than a year ago, long before the protests.]
The only question right now is how massive the response. Most seem to feel it has to be overwhelming, nothing less than 50,000 dead. No sophisticates, no overthinking it, none of this brainiac "Oh, we can't do that" stupidity. Do it, and deal with condemnations later. When we take our own counsel, like bombing the reactor and the preemptive strike of '67, it works out. When we listen to others, like Oslo and the Gaza expulsion, this is what we get back. For God's sake, how long will Israel fail to learn from history. Turn Gaza into a parking lot, and do it now.
" Most seem to feel it has to be overwhelming, nothing less than 50,000 dead. "
We are getting close
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-29-2024-f9b5a62a80d8b83eac4946d3c85af58b
There have been large scale protests against the govt on a regular basis for 10 months. That is unprecedented.
Heads of government have been assassinated. Jews committed piguim against other Jews. Gush katif. We do have more extreme examples of division in the history of our country. The attack is unprecedented, the level of division isn't. The two don't correlate.
"There will be plenty of time for recriminations and fallout later, at both the political and operational level. "
(Speculation warning!)
Maybe the "later" is a good thing. The sooner the international "community" pressures for a cease fire, the sooner the reckoning will come. Bibi will not survive the fallout; his only option for (temporary) political survival is to ignore the inevitable international pressure for a ceasefire and to not to abandon the war too prematurely as he has done in the past.
You mistranslated יפשפש במעשיו
Hope your virus goes away...
In terms of percentage of populations, this is by far the worst terrorist attack in history. In terms of sheer numbers, it's probably 2nd to 9/11.
By now, far worse than 9/11.
Are you sure? More than 3,000?
Quick math. US population in 2001 was 285 million. Israel is currently just under 10.
Multiply 700 by 28.5, you get 19,950. So essentially, more than 6 times 9/11. Plus hostages.
See my original comment.
My bad, I misunderstood.
Huh? read my initial comment.
May the A-lmighty protect your daughter together with all other soldiers in Israel.
May the IDF, with the help of G-d, quickly free the people of Gaza from the Hamas regime, bring the captives home safely, provide comfort to the hundreds of bereaved families, send a quick and full recovery to the thousands of injured, and bring a long lasting peace to the residents of the South so never again will the need to run to bomb shelters in the night, and bring peace to all of עם ישרשאל.
R’ Slifkin, davening for the safety of your family along with acheinu kol beit yisrael.
Please keep us updated.
Rabbi, regarding you suggestion for mental health services I am in touch with the head of a large Jewish mental health org in the US who would like to offer services. please message me misaacson [at] gmail
My preliminary thoughts, FWIW:
1. Being Nosei B'ol, Gevald...! Davening! Being Marbeh Zechuyos!
2. Getting off the computer asap and doing that.
3. A great Israeli Rosh Yeshiva said about how the YK war came about, that it's explicit in Avos that among other things, Ivus Hadin causes war, and not long before the YK war a terrible Ivus Hadin had occurred with the implicit(?) support of the Israeli gov't . (IOW, he looked outwards. Did he also look inwards? I'm sure.)
4. Why are people busy with their SINGLE causer? What about zeh v'zeh garmu? What about Lo Nechtam G'zar Dinam Ela Al Hagezel by the Mabul, that there were multiple factors
5. Looking outward while looking inward is fine, and when done very properly, important.
https://www.sefaria.org/Rambam_on_Pirkei_Avot.1.17.9?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
"And the fourth division [of speech] is the beloved, and that is speech in praise of intellectual virtues or dispositional virtues and in disgrace of both types of vice - to awaken the soul to the virtues with stories and songs, and to prevent the vices in these same ways. ... to disgrace the bad about their vices, so that their action and their memory be disgraced in the eyes of people and that they distance themselves from them and not act according to their practices."
6. An element in Bibi's Uman speech, and other of his public statements, (such as when French Jewry experienced terrorism and he invited them to Israel), is that thanks to the state, Israel is the safest place. With this, according to my conjecture, he opened the door for the Midas Hadin to settle accounts with us for our sins, and he be chastised.
7. Back to #1 & #2.
Please stay safe.
I do not want to cause unrelated debates, but what do you as a rationalist think your davening will achieve for the safety or success of israeli soldiers?
Rationalism still has God as part of the equation. That's a strange question
btw, can you share your thoughts on this situation going on? i'd love to hear your perspective. if you want you can email me at davidschulmannn@gmail.com
Sure.
In the last days I have been watching constantly al-jazeera arabic and israeli media.
In the last years, more and more arab countries have normalized their relationship with israel, fearing the shia iranian terrorism and threat. If you want more context on that, here: https://open.substack.com/pub/irrationalistmodoxism/p/do-we-misrepresent-our-opponents?r=2rw0fd&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=39871087
Hamas sees itself abandoned, so they started this surprise attack, utilizing the internal israeli divisions.
Hamas promised not to harm civilians (which for them includes only old people and children). All other israelis, since they are serving in the army, are military combatants and in hamas' view necessary targets, hence they shot these people on the rave party.
(There have been rumours on twitter about israeli women raped, but I haven't see any evidence. The story of 40 beheaded babies seems to be false, too and a picture of caged israeli children turned out to be an old picture of palestinian children).
Cuz Hamas goal with all these hostages is to get as many palestinians as possible out of prison. Last time israel released a 1000 palestinians for one captured soldier, imagine then now.
I think Hamas' strategy is wrong.
In Islamic Law, there is nothing legally wrong in killing any armed zionist in a state of war (whether woman or man, whether rabbi or layman and it doesn't have to be a soldier of the regular army tzahal, but even e.g. an armed settler like those in the west bank).
However, this indiscriminate killing and bombing is a war-crime, considering that many of the 1000 killed israelis are Arab Muslims (mostly the bedouins who live there in the south of israel) and who do not serve the army, rendering hamas' justification futile.
Non-Muslims are, in Islamic Law, in one of 4 possible categories. In three of these (dhimmi, mu'ahad, mustaman) it is prohibited to kill them, in one (harbi) only armed combatants can be killed (which could include women, old people and monks, with the condition that they are themselves armed and trying to kill you, but it is usually prohibited to kill them https://sunnah.com/muslim:1744b).
For references from classical Islamic jurists on war, see the book al-Badaai as-Sania from the jurist al-Kasani (12th century) https://shamela.ws/index.php/book/8183/1832 and the book al-Mughni from Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi (13th century) https://shamela.ws/book/8463/4225 and the book Ahkam ahli dhimma by Ibn al-Qayyim (14th century).
Except violating Islamic Law, I see a second problem with hamas' attack. The zionist retaliation will be much more brutal. Hamas violated this instruction by the Prophet saws: https://www.abuaminaelias.com/dailyhadithonline/2019/02/05/believers-not-seek-hardship/
Moving away from the strategy, the logic behind the attack itself is this: israel is built on zionism, the idea that jews must get an independent jewish state in zion i.e. palestine. But for such a state, one inevitably needs a majority jewish population which requires the ethnic cleansing or even genocide of the current majority population i.e. Arab muslims and Arab xtians. Some of them can stay (so called arab israelis) but most of them must go away.
Hence, for hamas, zionism is an irredemable ideology and its construct israel must be destroyed.
Emotionally I understand and even support this view. I have nothing against a jewish state in palestine per se, if there had been a realistic solution made by both sides without ethnic cleasing and personally I would even be ready to grant jews a specific place on the Temple mountain for davening.
But purely logically and legally speaking, I think that Hamas' attack was wrong.
Muslims know this too. Years ago, even before the saudi normalization with israel, the Saudi Grand Mufti Abdulaziz Aal Shaykh condemend Hamas: https://www.aljazeera.net/news/2017/11/15/%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%89-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%B2-%D8%A2%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D9%8A%D8%AE-%D8%AA%D8%AB%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%B1%D9%81%D8%B6
But the argument is always, that Palestinians have no other choice but to fight. I disagree with that assumption.
If you want to know what palestinians in my view should do instead, see: https://open.substack.com/pub/irrationalistmodoxism/p/do-we-misrepresent-our-opponents?r=2rw0fd&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=39986986
Rafael, can you please explain how the Hamas leaders calling for a "GLOBAL day of jihad" has anything to do with seeing all Israelis as threats, as this concerns all Jews in the world.
If you mean Khalid Mesha'ls speech (he is the chief of Hamas), then I already explained that here: https://open.substack.com/pub/irrationalistmodoxism/p/a-voice-from-the-frontlines?r=2rw0fd&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=41676782
Shulman here is handling most of your comments, but I want to know this: Hamas sees all Israelis between 18 and 67 as military targets. Is that also what the average civilian in Gaza believes? Even if not, if Israeli's were to apply the reverse logic, and look at Gaza they way they look at Israel, wouldn't that mean for every person in Gaza that Israeli's would look at as a threat?
My point is, if it is an equal 2 way struggle for survival, no side is necessarily wrong and can work with the same rules in an effort to annihilate each other as rules of war. I am not a fan of that, but otherwise this would be a double standard. It doesn't look like anything will change (unless they adopt your approach, something brought up in the 30's by Dr Jacob Dehan and was killed for it).
I hope I am not coming out sounding like I am advocating that, I am simply saying that if this logic is being used to identify the enemy it is either barbaric or right, not simply a wrong strategy or understanding the way you put it.
I do not know whether the average Gazan civilian thinks the same. I haven't seen any representative surveys on that. I do not know what the average israeli thinks, either. But certainly, the Hamas and Israeli political leadership do treat this as a 2 way struggle for survival. For netanyahu, this disgrace is also a struggle for his political survival.
I don't know what the average Gazan thinks for sure, but in 2006 Hamas got 45% of the vote, seemingly supporting Hamas positions. Fatah also got 41%, I don't think that party thinks any different than it's founder, Yassar Arafat. Could be they don't have much of a choice and they are voting them in for other benefits that they prioritize, I'd be curious to hear if that is the case.
As far as the last comment, I agree that almost all politicians think about one thing only, and that is themselves. However, being that the best thing for their selfish state is satisfying their constituents thereby earning their popularity, that is a good motivation to do the will of the people. If most people didn't agree with him he wouldn't be doing it.
What do you mean by "this disgrace"? the conflict in general, the atrocities, or the way the country's divided?
He was completely taken by surprise, unprepared and bamboozled. The army arrived 4 hours after the shootings begun. Some even called for netanyahus resignation or talk about conspiracy. Instead, bibi was busy throuhgout the year with pushing a divisive and unpopular judicial reform that could conveniently help him and other convicted ministers. Remember when his moronic drunken son yair in front of a brothel was recorded talking about his fathers' dubious deals with oligarchs? One might dismiss yairs words as drunken juvenile nonsense, but netanyahu immediately then tried to pass a law banning recordings like that. Nobody denies that israel needs a judicial reform, but this one goes to the other extreme and its a part of netanyahus self-serving pattern.
at least some the rapings have been confirmed by videos which i won't go into detail here, but just one example of many, one video was shown on cnn, and they spoke with the mother of the girl in the video, shani louk, and got permission to air it to show the atrocities - which makes it sound pretty real... we are always cautious when watching these kinds of things that perhaps its not a valid source, but there were definitely some confirmed.
the beheading is hearsay right now and we may never know if true, but there were definitely atrocities that were confirmed very clearly (as things go, meaning through solid journalism).
many israeli's btw don't support this whole occupation thing as a principle because of the conflicts it's causing. many prominent rabbis were against the establishment of a state because it isn't necessarily the appropriate hishtadlus (human efforts) to be the safe haven the Zionists claimed it would be. but we have no problem living there and even appreciate having what we believe to be our homeland back after all this time.
for the most part things have become so radicalized that at this point a two state solution is simply impossible, which is what happens when we stop being able to trust each other to make a treaty, and this goes both ways of course. but at this point with Hamas and Hezbollah and others, with Iran backing them, it really is an them or them situation and no one knows how to get out of this mess:(
as in all politics, we never really know who to trust and we all have our biases, and i hope this can be resolved without more pain
i also understand that many Palestinians do not back Hamas and we have nothing against them (you)
as a side, it seems unfair to say that any random citizen of israel shoudld b fair game as long as they are armed, because they are only armed for protection. because they live close that is a crime?
and the next q is, what is israel's response supposed to be now, but to fight back?
If the crimes are true I condemn them. You will notice that Muslims do not have a problem with condemning crimes. Most of the time we are just calling out fake news, exaggerated or decontextualized reports and especially double standards. In other words, just as we are condemning crimes, it would be nice if e.g. the chief rabbinate were to condemn the thousands of murdered palestinian women and children over the years.
Instead I saw orthodox rabbis making analogies to amalek (and you know better than me the halakha regarding their fate). Palestinians themsleves do not want a genocide, neither the xtian nor the Muslim ones.
You can imagine that most if not all of these Hamas fighters have dead relatives murdered by zionists and that this fueled their hatred.
P. S. Read my statement again. I said "in a state of war", I am not saying jews in israel can't own weapon against crime.
i think most of the rabbis comparing to amalek are mostly comparing hamas to them, not palestinians in general. (also they usually don't mean it in a halachic sense, just like slifkin has been (wrongly) compared to amalek) but many of them don't know that there is a difference. i myself don't know what the classic Muslim take is on what they want in life. are Hamas just a true religious group standing for true Muslim values, and the 'tame' Muslims are less religious? or are there different takes on how to read the Qur'an? what si going on there?
we, for example, want our religion to become clear to the world and we are pained that other people turn to other ideas of God with different rules and laws and desires. including the Muslim religion (we won't debate this now, just sharing our perspective). we await the day when things become clear and Muslims, xtians, atheists and all alike recognize the Jewish God as supreme (including believers recognizing Him more constantly, directly and to a more powerful degree). but we don't do anything about it except perfect ourselves and our relationship with Him. we believe that if we would perfect ourselves in our relationship with Him, He will figure out the rest. so Jews in general have never been a threat to any government (until this occupation).
but what do Muslims believe? what do authentic, really religious Muslims believe? is it their place to make themselves on top? to force the word to recognize their truth? if yes, isn't Hamas doing the right thing in your eyes? (in the sense that killing infidels is like our killing amalek)
Of course we would like Islam to be ruling religion of the world. A liberal wishes for a liberal world order, a communist for a communist one, american american one, russian russian one and chinese chinese one.
هُوَ الَّذِيْٓ اَرْسَلَ رَسُوْلَهٗ بِالْهُدٰى وَدِيْنِ الْحَقِّ لِيُظْهِرَهٗ عَلَى الدِّيْنِ كُلِّهٖۙ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْمُشْرِكُوْنَ
He it is Who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religion however much idolaters may be averse to it.
Qur'an 61:9
When you believe that your values, which lead to what you call perfection, are morally correct and even from a universal God, Who is the Creator of the entire cosmos, then of course you would wish that Law to be ruling in the world. It doesn't mean that all individuals have to abandon their own beliefs. Their communities have their autonomies and rules and the individual will not be forced to abandon his beliefs, simply because true belief necessitate ikhlas (sincerity). But the ruling supreme law and measure for everything is of course Gods true will. Hence I mentioned Ibn Qayyims book on the laws regarding non Muslim in the Caliphate.
The reason why Muslims scholars criticise Hamas is because they are implementing this goal in the wrong way. They are not criticising the goal itself.
There is a principle in Islamic Law called الحكم على الشيء فرع عن تصوره which basically means in order to judge a thing you need a full understanding of its reality.
As I explained, Hamas didn't have that full understanding. They classified anybody living on the other side of the fence between the age of 18-67 as a reservist and hence a necessary military target. This is wrong and does injustice to the demographic diversity of that part of israel.
Hamas also calculated, based on previous experience, that tzahal will not bomb gaza indiscrimnately because of the hostages. This assumption, though reasonable, turned out to be false, too
I would say the same problem goes for rabbis who are paskening against all Palestinians collectively.
But as a jew, you do expect all goyim to one day bow in front of the jewish God (and of course you do). So there comes forcing beliefs from your side too. And always remember that the seven nations who previously inhabited Kanaan tasted that coercion too in bloody ways, just like the 70% of jews will, who are chilonim and mechalelim shabbat and not eating kosher (and you know the halakha regarding such crimes).
"My personal, practical understanding is that Islamic scholarly theory plays little or no role in the Hamas guidebook." I agree with you rabbi goldberg.
If you mean by "different approaches" a possible islamic legal argument for a recognition of israel, I think that palazzi is wrong for defending the current zionist entity.
As I said in other comments, in essence, we have nothing against a jewish state per se, provided that both sides agreed on realistic functioning states without ethnic cleansing.
God does affirm in the Qur'an that He gave the holy Land to the israelites. However, He also constantly points out that jews should convert to Islam and accept Muhammad saws as Gods Final Messenger,. Thats an important point that palazzi leaves out. Comparing israel to what the israelites got is a false equivalence, too.
Ismail al-Faruqi was a palestinian politologist. He used to be an arab nationalist and supremacist. However, he renounced that and made Islam his sole political, legal and ideological view. Besides the inevitable zionist ethnic cleansing and the theological differences between Islam and judaism, Faruqi identified a third problem with israel that palazzi did not consider. The zionist project and entity called israel is not religious anyway (a zionist who even disbelieves in the Torah cares even less about the Qur'an as a reason for the establishment of Israel). Its a secularist, nationalist (and at that time socialist) state, that Muslims could never accept.
Faruqi asked for the renouncing of arab nationalism, secularism and remnants of colonial law in these contemporary postcolonial artificial arab states that we have today (I think he would agree on the establishment of a unified Caliphate).
In the same token, he argued that israel must become a rabbinical medinat halakha and get rid of the socialist, secularist and democratic zionist baggage. In such a case, an Islamic state and a jewish state could continuously live in peace together in a confederation (whoch would mean a state similar to the shengen accord we have in europe). Such a jewish state, where jews follow jewish law, Muslims Sharia, xtians whatever they want, that would be acceptable. Cuz historically, thats how Caliphates worked: Muslims have their law, jews their and the only thing was that jews had to pay the jizya tax, which did not apply in times where the Caliphate could not military protect the jewish population. this was especially the case at border regions. If the siraelis set up their own army and protection, one might drop the jizya too.
I think this plan would be reasonable taking the current situation into account (at least from my Muslims and your jewish perpsective, a secularist israeli or secularist atheist arab,might be siffering a heart attack reading this)
But as long as the whole "oNly dEmocRacy iN tHe miDdle EasT" propaganda trope continues, israel is considered a foreign, colonialist and implanted element
I agree with the second half of your comment (if I agreed with the first half I wouldn't be Jewish) in theory, but as it is obvious, given the current situation we are way past such a possibility. We'd have to Brainwash both sides for many years.
as far as the only democracy thing you mention, I always thought it was Americans who came up with that at a point when most countries in the middle east were dominated to some level by dictators or terrorists. While some things may be different now, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon Libya, Jordan Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, all have this problem in their recent history.
Now if you mean that even Israel is not democratic because of Arabs lacking rights, which ones are you referring to? The ones living in Israel proper do, and the ones living in the West bank are not under Israel authority.
I mean, israel is an ethno state that needs ethnic cleansing and a discriminating immigration policy. Have you ever wondered why neo-nazis like richard spencer or nick fuentes praise israel explicity for that? I am a white european straight man and if I asked for similar things I would be branded a white supremacist (rightfully so) and you know the adl and souther poverty law center would warn everybody from me.
Kahane has written a lot about the irreconcilable differences betseen zionism and democracy. My point was, that even if israel were a true democracy, that would affirm it being a foreign, implanted and colonial state, cuz democracy is not an asian, african, australian, chinese or native-american or even eastern european phenomenon, but a western euoropean one. There were social and political circumstances in england beginning from the 13ht to the 19th century that gave birth to the democracy we today have (the german politologist dieter grosser wrote about that) and made it possible. But even the existence of these circumstances do not guarantee democracy (see german democracy that was replaced by the nazis through the votes of millions of germans). The Muslims world is united and defined by Islam and Shaira law, hence secularists and colonialists pushed for nationalism and tribalistic conflicts and established these artificial nation states. Add to that the lack of the particular circumstances, it is clear why democracy does not exist among arabs either.
Let's ask the greatest rationalist, shall we?
He answers:
אבל אם לא יזעקו ולא יריעו אלא יאמרו דבר זה ממנהג העולם אירע לנו וצרה זו נקרה נקרית. הרי זו דרך אכזריות וגורמת להם להדבק במעשיהם הרעים. ותוסיף הצרה צרות אחרות.
No one said that our religious and moral actions are not part of the equation.Noone excluded prayer and Tshuva from the equation. At the same time natural events and consequences are also part of the equation.Human actions and effort are crucial but not enough to overcome Jewish religious failures. We pray for G-d's chesed and His Rachmanut.
Amen!
Note that well: the person is called an אכזר, a "cruel" person, not a רשע or a שוטה. I heard the reason in the name of R. Ruderman: bc such a person is insensible and unfeeling, and this is where the roots of cruelty lie. An inability to empathize or feel the suffering of others.
Slifkins rationalism, as he explains it, does not exclude prayer or other Torah concepts. He is a faithful Torah believing Jew.His position rejects mysticism as a regular answer to religious questions and understanding of important religious events. Of course payer is basic to our faith and in no way does his rationalism reject it.You are confusing his rationalism that rejects religion and spiritual actions.
Rafael, praying is just something to say that will offend almost no1. At a time like this, we can still use meaningless (to us) phrases. Stalin opened all the shuttered churches during ww2.
Sure, read my reply to david shulman
Wow didn't know it "was probably the largest number of Jews murdered in a single day since the Holocaust". Is that total Jews or just civilians?
Does it matter?
i'm actually on your side of the slifkin debate, but is this the place to yell at him, when you're literally screaming about setting aside our differences? that line he wrote bothered me too but right now Hamas is our enemy, not slifkin. he may have a different approach and may have even added that line but forgive and stick together please so we can focus on who is the real enemy and do what we need to have Hashem favor us, each with our own derech. becaue of slifkin i was able to easily give a fair amount of tzedaka which i'm sure helped many. let's keep our fighting out, even what we normally understand to be l'maan Hashem. right now the l'maan Hashem is to only argue about fundamentals and in a calm way and keep our eye on the ball. unity is not just a nice concept; it's part of teshuva with Hashem wants right now.
and i'm only saying this to you, not to those on this blog who have a real point to make about our derech, even if i disagree with their approach at this time. and i have only respect for you for doing what you feel is kvod Hashem, for real, i'm on your side, i'm just asking if we can try to come together here
thanks. may we see no more חילול כבוד שמים וישראל and may we see no more suffering
@sender,
What exactly is it that I don’t know what I’m talking about? If you were honest, instead of just being dismissive, you’d buttress your position with a cogent response instead of simply saying that I be cancelled. That really doesn’t support your argument.
"Gedolei Torah, who know a lot more than you or me have made it clear that they hold that one can dedicate himself to full time learning and, al pi Halacha, he is exempt from the army in accordance to the psak of the Rambam."
These are the same Gedolim who believe that Rambam was of the view that Chazal were infallible in science. They don't have a clue what Rambam actually held and they don't really want to know.
"NOBODY thinks Chazal were infallible in science."
A lot of nobodies out there.
You owe R' Moshe Meiselman an apology.
No, the "zechus torah" of those who avoid their responsibilities is not remotely as important as the mobilization of the IDF. It's like people who learn Torah on erev Shabbos instead of helping their wives.
do you believe in teshuva tefila u'tzedaka...?
Absolutely. I hope that they will do teshuva.
So isn't intensifying learning and doing what God wants a major part of that?
Just as the idf needs to mobilize, we believe that it is equally/more important to strengthen our service of God...
Absolutely. But not in place of mobilizing.
I think we're on the same page. Even Moshe Rabeinu had Yehoshua lead the war while he davened.
But for those who are not in the army, for whatever amount of reasons, our avoda is to strengthen our service of God as much as possible. And that should be strongly stressed as the Jewish response to an עת צרה
Those in Yeshiva don’t even reach the soles of the boots of those who place their lives on the line. And I’m talking about ruchniyot. Let’s see them take a stand to protect others. Whose sacrifices do you think HaShem “appreciates” more.
And I promise you any of these bachurim would give their lives in a second rather than violate the Torah c'v. Like eating chazer bshaas hashmad. Or any other single issur or even heilige minhag yisroel.
Ummmm we kind of know the answer to that... Pretty easy to research
Uh….no maybe they should stop shirking thier duty and put their lives on the line like everyone else. Basically they are cowards.
According to your uninformed view of how the world works you are correct
It's very simple. There is a war. People need to fight.
Jewish take (not to the exclusion of the need to fight in our current state):There is a war. we need to turn to God and do teshuva
I'm just curiously asking, has Rabbi Natan Slifkin served? Not his kids, but the Rabbi himself? If not, maybe join right now? ("They won't accept me" is a lame excuse. Go ahead and offer them your conscription.)
Second question: would the Museum ever have come about? Or would there be a different museum, one discussing the calibre of ammunition required to pierce the armour of a Russian T-80....
All of that aside, probably, if given a choice, many very kind and responsible Charedi Yeshiva students would actually like to serve. There are other issues preventing them- mostly political in nature. I cannot even place all of the blame on the Roshei Yeshivos. The Army leadership itself is very opposed to accommodating Charedi recruits in regular units. Go figure.
Hint: What it is that makes a person good at killing people, is not what makes a good Yeshiva Scholar.
Can we find other military responsibilities that are intellectual, and go alongside a Torah-studying lifestyle? It's an open question. But I think there are, and the IDF would know. That is where you should be looking.
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I just want to conclude with an analogy; one a little different from yours, of the Kollel Scholar who doesn't help with the Shabbos preparations. The Scholar wanted to help, but was told he must do so in a way that was contrary to either his beliefs or his abilities. He tried asking for some changes, but his wife flatly refused. After giving up hope, he went back to studying. While not perfect, it is far more accurate.
Terrible analogy.
There are videos circulating right now of the Israeli army boasting how its fences and sophisticated defenses made Israel impregnable. And yet with bare bones equipment costing .00001% of the defense budget, they came right on through.
Nissim Black said it best, in a simple sentence: "We need the army, but the army needs God."
And upon just a minute's additional reflection, hasn't that exact same point been made by the Bible, over and over and over?
@ Garvin,
So where was god yesterday when Yidden needed him the most? During our recent Yom Kipur, it appears that your breast-beating supplications were insufficient to stir god’s empathy and altruism in Israel’s favor.
So which of god’s implorations were you deficient in? Was it Tshuvah or Tfillah or Tzedakah? Maybe all three or only 2 of the 3 or perhaps just 1. Wouldn’t it be nice for god to tell you which of the three supplications you were deficient in before deciding to kill thousands of blameless Yidden.
Yeah. It’s all your fault.
Uriah - this blog, for all its misguided opinions, is still a religious one. The blog host, all of us - אנחנו מאמינים בני מאמינים. If you have lost your faith, then I feel very bad for you, but you don't belong here any more. This is no longer your home.
BUT IF you are still, as I hope, hanging on, even if by a thread, and your angst is nothing more than lashing out at God as anguished Jews have done for thousands of years, then take heart. The ways of the Lord are inscrutable. We are simply too small and too temporal to see the big picture. All we can do is what we have been taught to do by the Torah itself, and by the prophets and the teachers through the millennia: pray to Him. He desires our prayer, and He listens.
Yes we are not guaranteed protection. As Yaacov was afraid of Esav ,perhaps his sin will forfeit G-d's protection.Yaacov took practical steps to protect his family and people,including Tefillah.
Since when was G-d altruistic?
My comment is for you and no one else, so I'm editing it.
Not the religious way to relate to the questioneer.
We need God but we don’t need shirkers.
The mistake you make is in thinking that zechus Hatorah comes specifically from the people who should be serving in the army, as opposed to all the other people who are learning Torah
"Noson Jesus"
המכנה את חברו... אין לו חלק לעולם הבא
RNS believes in Torah and preaches accordingly. He criticizes what he believes is lacking.You have your approach and he has his.Are you an Apikorus?!
'Rabbanan' does not refer to everybody 'in learning'. It refers to rabbonim, leaders.
I hope there was a call up that all Yeshiva and Kollel students should immediately return to the Bais Medrash and not wait until Rosh Chodesh.
Indeed there was:
https://www.kikar.co.il/yeshiva-world/s26hh0
Fill up the coffee pots! Warm those chairs! Like they are really doing anything. 126 soldiers so far have paid the supreme price. They are cowered and shirkers.
@sender
Yeah, all that zechus hatorah didn’t deter Hamas from its genocidal butchery as is evidenced by all those useless zechusim throughout the years of holocaust.
All those thousands of yeshiva and kollel folks studying holy 4th century tort law didn’t count for a hill of beans, all those zechusim a worthless palaver of self delusion and pretext not to subject themselves to the dangers facing Israeli soldiers.
When levelheaded Jews see the idiocy spouted by Sender they make just one brucha every day — she’assani secular. And it’s one great reason that the majority of Jews are off the derech and want no association with chareidi/Orthodox society.
At another time, I'd argue with you. Now, I'd simply suggest you save your anger for the real enemy. Shalom, sister. In the truest meaning of the word.
My comment is for you and no one else, so I'm editing it. It should still be in your email...