From Barbara
Ginsberg’s Desktop
Jews
and Judaism,
Rabbi
Meir Kahane
May
30, 1986
WHY
HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?
If we would know the heart of tragedy of Israel, of the
Jewish-Arab struggle, of the reason why peace eludes a Jewish state that so
desires it, of the cause of the ongoing suffering and tragedy, of the immutable
rule that there will not be tranquility and peace for the Jew or his state, let
me explain.
Some time ago an opinion poll was given to Arabs and Jews by
sociology Professor Ephraim Ya’ar of Tel Aviv University. The professor gave his respondents a list of
14 factors that may or may not influence the course of peace between Israel and
the Arab states, and asked each of them to rank the list in importance from one
to14. The results?
The Arabs placed “the will of G-d” first; the Jews placed it
last. Or another example: Yet another
Tel Aviv University project was conducted by its Jaffee Center for Strategic
Studies. Respondents were asked to
comment on the Biblical verse, “The guardian angel of Israel slumbers not, nor
sleeps.” They were asked who in their
minds, represented the Guardian of Israel.
Fifty-seven percent replied “the Israeli army” and 17% declared that it
was G-d…
And that, dear Jew, is the reason and the source and the
cause of a tragedy that is building up, and that, unless swift, radical change
takes place in Jewish thought and action, it will bring down horrors upon the
Jew and his state, Heaven help us.
The truth is that the Jew has long since become the most
unbelieving of all people, the most atheistic of nations. Deluded by his intelligence into the most
arrogant and proud of men. Like some
modern-day Adam, he has eaten from the tree of Knowledge and dreams of
Divinity.
Like some modern-day builder of Babel, he is convinced that
he can climb to the heavens and conquer.
His cleverness and brightness that so persuaded him that he is the
wisest and most perceptive of men, insures that he will be the blindest and
most obtuse.
No people and no faith are so convinced that its destiny is
essentially its own, in its own hands.
None has relegated G-d to the bin of antiquity, to the shadow of
irrelevance, as the Jew. There are those
who are convinced that He does not exist.
There are those who invent Him as a being, who indeed, has a place, but
it is conveniently limited and He has better know it. There are those who pay prodigious amounts of
lip service and ritual to G-d and whose religion fills their lives as long as
there is no need to place their “belief” on the line in time of danger. Few are the Jews who sincerely believe that
victory in war is totally in the hands of G-d, who are prepared to take the
difficult and dangerous steps their religion demands, lest they have to put
their faith where their claims are.
The people that were the most religious of all have become
the most indifferent to G-d. The People
of the Book place more faith in that of the check than the Bible. In time of crisis, the Jew does not believe
in anything, except that which he can see, touch, feel. He can see Ronald Reagan; he believes in him
far more than in the G-d of Abraham. He
can feel the Russians; he fears them more than the intangible G-d he pays lip
service to as long as there is no crisis.
He can touch the tanks of the Israeli army and so he prays that there
will be enough of them instead of believing that One is enough for Him. “For My people have committed two evils; they
have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and hewed them out of cisterns,
broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2)
The truth is that we will swear our belief in the
Omnipotence of the G-d of Israel as long as this remains in the abstract, in
the realm of theory. We show our fervent
belief in the miracles that happened yesterday, but we shrink from testing them
today or tomorrow. That which we need
not do ourselves is easily believed in and avidly taught or sermonized. Yesterday is always smoothly dealt with – who
needs to place himself on the line? Who
must be tested? The belief in the general
Omnipotence of G-d easily fills our hearts.
It is only when we must get down to specifics, to real and actual
implementation of faith in our own lives that the hypocrisy becomes a stench
which is overpowering.
The G-d of Israel is not a “Santa Claus.” The religion of Israel is not a
plaything. If there is one thing above
all that the Almighty desires of us demands of us, it is faith. “Therefore, the L-rd heard and was wroth; and
a fire was kindled against Jacob and anger also came up against Israel; because
they believed not in G-d and trusted not in His salvation.” (Psalms 78)
That is the Jewish iron Law:
Belief and trust in G-d. rather than looking to and raising Jewish eyes
unto the gentile. There can be no greater
Hillul Hashem, desecration of the Name of G-d than when the Jew places
his faith in the power of the gentile.
For what he is saying is that there really is no G-d; and this is the
end of Judaism, and this is the end of any reason for the existence of the
Jews.
Jews have long sighed, “It is hard to be a Jew.” As with most things, this too is a statement
of hypocrisy. They do not really believe
it. They really do believe that they can
mold for themselves a good and happy life and at the same time gild it with a
thin covering of comfortable Judaism. Of
course, it is nonsense. Of course, it really
is hard to be a Jew, the kind of Jew that the Almighty demands; the kind of Jew
who is the son and daughter of Abraham, who faced the furnace for this belief
and did not flinch; the kind of Jew who is the son and daughter of Mordechai
who faced the gallows and did not bow; the son and daughter of the Jew whose
entire Torah rests on the commandment: “And the righteous shall live by his
faith.”
That is difficult.
That is a Jew. King David turned,
in his day to G-d and lamented: “My G-d, my G-d, why has thou forsaken
me?” If one listens carefully, the voice
of the G-d of Israel can be heard in the era of Jewish neo-atheism, calling
softly: “MY people, My people, why have you forsaken Me?”
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