But There is a G-d in Israel - 1980

THEY MUST GO – written in 1980, printed in 1981
RABBI MEIR KAHANE

 But There is a G-d in Israel
(excerpts)
 

The analysis and proposed transfer of Arabs from Israel that I have set down are not personal views.  They are certainly not political ones.  This is the Jewish outlook, based on halakah the law as postulated in the Torah.

The removal of all Arabs who refuse to accept the exclusive, unquestioned Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael is not only logical and normal for any Jew with a modicum of an instinct for self-preservation; it is also the Jewish halakic obligation.  It is important that we know this in order to realize what true “Jewishness” really dictates and in order to instill in ourselves the faith and assurance that if we do this, all the nations in the world will be incapable of harming Israel.

     
The Jewish people are not merely one more nation.  “Though I put an end to all the nations among whom thou art scattered, but I will never put an end to thee” (Jeremiah 30:11).  Israel is indestructible.  It is unique, it is holy, it is the Chosen of the L-rd; it has a reason for being.  Its national uniqueness is built on an idea, on an ideology, that it alone has.   The Jew is selected and obligated to be a religio-nation, commanded to obey the laws and follow the path of Torah.  The covenant.  The Jewish people took upon itself the yoke of the L-rd, acknowledging Him as G-d and observing His laws.  The Almighty chose them as His unique people, pledging that they would be indestructible and would live in peace and prosperity in their own land, Eretz Yisrael.
         

The land was given as a reward, as a blessing.  But it is more, much more, than that.  The people of Israel have more than a right to the land; they have an obligation.  “For you shall pass over the Jordan to go in to possess the Land which the L-rd your G-d gives you, and you shall possess it and dwell therein” (Deuteronomy 11:31).

A unique people given, uniquely, a particular land.  Unlike all the other faiths that are not limited to one special country, the Jew is given a particular land and commanded to live there.  And for a reason, as Moses explains:  “Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the L-rd, my G-d, commanded me, that you shall do so in the Land whither you go to possess it. (Deuteronomy 4:5).

           

It is impossible to create a holy, unique people that dwells as a minority within lands that belong to others.  The majority culture must infiltrate, influence, corrupt, woo, tempt, pervert.  The Jew is commanded to create for himself a holy nation, and that can only be done free of others, separate, different, apart.  That is why the unique nation, chosen for holiness and unique destiny, was given a land for itself: so that it might create a unique, holy society that would be a light unto the nations who would see its example and model.

 And as the Torah clearly commanded: And you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you…But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that those which you let remain of them, shall be thorns in your eyes and thistles in your sides and shall torment you in the land wherein you dwell.  And it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them” (Numbers 3:52-56). 

 Far better than foolish humans did the Almighty understand the dangers inherent in allowing a people that believed the land belonged to it to be given free and unfettered residence, let along ownership, proprietorship, citizenship.  What more natural thing than to ask to regain that it believed to be rightly its own land?  And this over and above the need to create a unique and distinctly separate Torah culture that will shape the Jewish people into a holy nation.  That “uniqueness” can be guaranteed only by the non-Jew’s having no sovereignty, ownership, or citizenship in the state that could allow him to shape its destiny and character.

           

This is Torah.  This is Jewishness.  Not the dishonest pseudo “Judaism” chanted by the Liberal secularists who pick and choose what “Judaism” finds favor in their eyes and who reject what their own gentilized concepts find unacceptable.  They weigh “Judaism” on the scales of their own intellectual arrogance – arrogance, incidentally, of intense ignorance.

 

And if this is not only the right of Jews but their obligation, what do we fear?  Why do the Jews tremble and quake before the threat of the nations?  Is there no longer a G-d in Israel?  Have we lost our bearings that we do not understand the ordained historical role of the State of Israel, a role that ensures that it can never be destroyed and that no further exile from it is possible?  Why is it that we do not comprehend that it is precisely our refusal to deal with the Arabs according to halakic obligation that will bring down on our heads terrible sufferings, whereas our courage in removing them will be one of the major factors in the hurrying of the final redemption?

 

What is wrong with us?  Who blinded us and blocked from our memories the existence and power of the G-d of Israel?  Did a Jewish people exist for 2,000 years without state, government, or army, wandering the earth interminably from land to land, suffering pogroms and Holocaust and surviving powerful empires that disappeared into history, just by coincidence?  Did a Jewish people return to its land from the far corners of the earth to set up its own sovereign state – exactly as promised in the Bible – through mere natural means?  What other nation ever did such a thing?  Where are the Philistines of Goliath today?  Where is imperial Rome with its Latin and its gods?  Who defeats armies in six days, and on the seventh they rest?

Who if not an Israel because there is a G-d in it!  The Land of Israel is His divine Land; the State of Israel is His divine hand.  History is not a series of random events, disjointed and coincidental.  There is a Creator, a Guide, a Hand that plans and directs.  There is a scenario to history.  The Jew has come home for the third and last time.  “But the third shall be left therein” (Zechariah 13:8).  The first redemption was that from Egypt; the second, the redemption of Ezra.  The third will never end” (Tanhuma, Shoftim 9).

We live in the era of the footsteps of the Messiah, the beginning of the final redemption.  The rise of the State of Israel from the ashes of Auschwitz marks the end of the night of black humiliation and agony, of Hillul Hashem, and the beginning of the dawn of the final, total redemption, of Kiddush Hashem, sanctification of G-d’s name. The State of Israel is not a “political” creation.  It is a religious one.  No power could have prevented its birth and none can destroy it.  It is the beginning of G-d’s wrath, vengeance against the nations who ignored, disdained, and humiliated Him, who found Him irrelevant, who “knew Him not.”  But, it is only the beginning.  How the final redemption will come, and when, depends on the Jews.

The exiles shall be ingathered only through “faith” (Mechilta, Exodus).  If we have it, if we truly believe in the existence of the Creator and Guider of history, the G-d of Israel, we can bring the final redemption today.  “When will the Messiah come? ‘Today, as it is said:  “Today, if you will hearken unto my voice’” (Psalms 95:7, Sanhedrin 98a).

 

The Arabs of Israel represent Hillul Hashem in its starkest form.  Their rejection of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel despite the covenant between the L-rd of Israel and the Jews constitutes a rejection of the sovereignty and kingship of the L-rd G-d of Israel.  Their transfer from the Land of Israel thus becomes more than a political issue. It is a religious issue, a religious obligation, a commandment to erase Hillul Hashem.  Far from fearing what the Gentile will do if we do such a thing, let the Jew tremble as he considers the anger of the Almighty if we do not.

 

Tragedy will be ours if we do not move the Arabs out.  The great redemption can come immediately and magnificently if we do that which G-d demands.  One of the great yardsticks of real Jewish faith in this time of momentous decision is our willingness to reject fear of man in favor of awe of G-d and remove the Arabs from Israel.

 

The world?  The nations – united or otherwise?  What do they matter before the omnipotence of the Almighty?

 “Why do the nations rage…the Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together, against the L-rd and against His anointed…He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the L-rd shall mock them…”  (Psalms 2:1-4).  The Jewish people and state cannot be destroyed.  Their weapon is their G-d.  That is reality

 

Let us remove the Arabs from Israel and bring the redemption.

 

THEY MUST GO.

 

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Lesson to be Learned - 1990

K A H A N E
The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
September – October 1990    Ellul 5750 – Tishrei 5751

 VIEWPOINT – Lessons to be learned

(EXCERPTS)
(change Iraq to Iran and 1990 to 2012)

The Rabbis tell us that Gog will rise up against Israel in order to do war against the G-d of Israel.  The ultimate Hillul Hashem.  And, indeed, until the Jew understands that the war against Ishmael and ultimately the world, is a war of Judaism, of the G-d of Israel, against the nations and their religions and beliefs, a war to proclaim the G-d of Israel as King, as the One and only G-d, we will never understand any of the events that are taking place around us.

We do, indeed, not understand.  Worse, we do not want to understand.  Having been conquered and subjugated by the gentilized Foreign Culture, such talk sounds to us as “medieval” and “primitive” and “tribalistic” and, of course, “Khoumeinism.”  Alas, the Ishmaelites, the Muslims understand it only too well and Saddam, whether through belief or cynical politics, used it and proclaimed it in his proclamation calling for a holy war:

“To all Arabs and Muslims masses wherever they are – save Mecca and the Tomb of the Prophet from occupation . . .

 “The imperialists, deviators, merchants, political agents, the servants of the foreigner and Zionism all stood up against Iraq only because it represents the conscience of the Arab nation and its ability to safeguard its honor and rights against any harm.

 “Iraq, O Arabs, is your Iraq... It is the candle of the right to snuff out darkness…

 “O Arabs, O Muslims and believers everywhere.  This is your day to rise and defend Mecca, which is captured by the spears of the Americans and Zionists.

 

“Strike at their interests everywhere.  Save Mecca and the Tomb of Prophet Mohammed in Medina…

 “Victory is ours, God willing, and the invaders will be repelled and with them oppression and corruption everywhere and the sun will shine forever on the Arab and Muslim nations…”

 

This is what Gog is all about,  This is the beginning of the final era and the lessons of the events of our time can be summed up in one general cry: “Return unto Me, saith the L-rd of Hosts, and I will return unto you” (Zechariah 1); “Return unto Me, ye backsliding children, I will heal your backslidings.”  That is the lesson of lessons, and from it all the others, the individual lessons are to be learned.

The events surrounding the Iraqi attack and conquest of Kuwait are things to be studied, learned, to be engraved on the tablet of our hearts.  For there are so many lessons to be learned here, so many lessons that the Almighty pleads with us to learned before terrible tragedy strikes.

 

ONE:  The Arab world is populated with people who are filled with hate and cruelty, ambition for power and lust for ascendancy.  They are people for whom truth, a promise and pledge are totally meaningless things, without the slightest moral or ethical value, meant to be used as weapons and means to achieve whatever goal strikes the fancy at that time.  The fact is that whatever the Iraqis said and did was part of one huge tissue of lies.  The original charges were lies.  The cover of meeting with the Kuwaitis to ostensibly work toward a settlement was a lie.  The claim that they were called in by Kuwaitis rebelling against the government was a lie.  The greatest truth of the Middle East is that Arabs simply lie.  

Of course, it is not only Iraq.  Every time (and that means many times) slaughter breaks out in Lebanon, there is a call for a truce.  Any particular outbreak of violence is certain to give birth to at least a dozen “truces” each one broken whenever any side feels that it has an opportunity to benefit from the breach.  A promise, a word, a treaty, in the Arab world is a weapon in the game of acquisition, and the person who takes an Arab’s word seriously deserves his punishment if not for no other reason than that he is a fool.

The lesson?  We would be worse than foolish to trust the Palestinians.  We would be murderers of our loved ones.  Saddam Hussein is not a person – he is a concept.  Every Arab ruler is a Saddam Hussein, and given the opportunity, they behave like him.  Answar Saddat who attacked across the Suez Canal on Yom Kippur was a Saddam.  And we, who gave away a huge land mass and moved the border to within 60 mils of Tel Aviv, are mad.  And Hussein Mubarak is a Saddam and when he feels that his opportunity is ripe, will strike at Israel.  And Hussein, of Jordan, the little king, in 1967 smelled that opportunity for himself and attacked Israel.

There is not truth, no honesty, no word, no loyalty among the Arabs.  Yesterday’s enemy is today’s “friend,” and Jordan can massacre the PLO and then a PLO terrorist can assassinate a Jordanian minister and drink his blood, and tomorrow they can be “allies.”  Yesterday, Syria tried to do to Jordan what Iraq did to Kuwait; today they are “brothers.”  There is a diseased soul in the Arab world.

TWO:  To everyone who has told me (and I cannot begin to count the ways), that the reason we cannot expel the Arabs is that the world will not accept it:  Why is it that Saddam Hussein was not worried about “the world?”  Why is it that the Iranians are not worried about “the world?”  Why is it that the Esaus of the world never worry about what all the other Esaus might say and do?  Why is that only Jacob sits about all day watching tragedy grow and an awesome and terrible future come closer and refuses to act normal because of “the world” and what it might do and say?  Why is it that Saddam is prepared to do a terrible thing and not fear “the world” and Jews are not ready to do a mitzvah that will save them, i.e. throwing out the Arabs, because of “the world?”  Learn the lesson.

THREE: The real and natural reaction in the Arab world was one of awe and respect for a man who wasted no time in diplomatic niceties but used power and strength.  And here is the key to the Arab and Middle Eastern mind – strength and power is what impresses, not goodness and morality.  When Israel was perceived by the Arabs to be strong and tough, they hated her but feared her and cowered in terror.  Each time that Israel, consistent with her Hellenistic-influence, grants insane concessions, it is not perceived by the Arabs as “goodness” but as weakness, and the weak in the Middle Eastern jungle are ripe for the slaughter.  Learn the lesson.

 

FOUR:  The Iraqi dictator has become a hero to the Palestinians who see in his actions the only way to deal with Israel.  They dream that his moves, in defiance of the world, will be adopted by other Arab states against Israel.  That is why the PLO supports him.  He has brutally taken over another Muslim Arab state – does that matter? Not in the slightest in the jungle of beasts and wild animals that comprises the Arab world.  Learn the lesson.

 

FIVE:  From this lesson comes forth another lesson.  The Iraqi move will embolden the Israeli Arabs inside the Jewish state to intensify their attacks on her.  The so-called intifada will grow and expand inside Israel and give Iraq greater reason to intensify its own threats against Israel’s existence until the madman who typifies so much that is the Arab megalomaniac mind may be driven by dreams to launch his missiles and chemicals against the Jewish state.  Already on behalf of Saddam, a man threatened to incinerate Israel.  The Arabs of Israel are possessed by a hatred of the Jewish state that transcends their fear of being incinerated along with the Jews.  And we allow them to remain and grow and become a fifth column cancer within our midst.  Madness!  Learn the lesson that cries out two things:

 

a)      Remove the Israeli Arabs now, before it is too late.

 

     b)      Strike at Iraq now, before that, too, is too late.  And that is the next lesson:
  

SIX:  It is only a matter of time before Saddam, drunk with adulation of his people and the Arab world, and seeing himself as one of the great Arab heroes of history, takes upon himself to do that which the Arab world has dreamed of doing for 42 years – wiping out Israel.

Every day that passes sees Saddam’s nuclear and chemical power and potential grow.  Israel’s interests are not those of the United States.  America seeks to protect the oil fields and the “moderate” Arab state.  Our concern is not that; ours is knowledge that even if Saddam should capitulate to all American demands and retreat from Kuwait, he remains to continue his progress to nuclear weapons, even more awesome chemical and biological ones, and the ever-more sophisticated means of delivering them.

 

The U.S. wishes Israel to stay out of the fray.  It wants Israel neither to be seen nor heard, lest that harm U.S. interests in the Arab world It certainly does not want Israel to bomb Iraq, despite the fact that Iraq’s main and hallowed target is Israel.  The nuclear bombs of Iraq are not aimed and never will be aimed at Washington.  They will be at Israel.

Israel’s interest are not those of the United States, and we should do only what is best for us.  One can feel for American hostages, and in great measure they are there now because George Bush waited and allowed the Iraqis time to round them up and place them as hostages inside the sensitive Iraqi targets.  But all that is ultimately irrelevant.  Just as the U.S. did nothing for Israeli hostages and really could not have cared less, so must Israel disregard American interests when its survival is at stake.

 

Every day Saddam moves closer to perfecting weapons of awesome mass destruction.  Now, now, now, before he can wipe out, G-d forbid, hundreds of thousands of our people, is the time to strike and level his potential – factories, installations, missiles.  Now, now, now while the world – which we so fear – is itself in a mood of anger and fear of Iraq.  Strike; destroy the man and people who both have the halachic status of a “rodef,” of one who wishes to kill Jews.

Israel should never be bound by any made, murderous, perverted ethics and immoral morality of the disturbed liberal-left axis.  Never should to ever pledge not to strike a first blow.  If the need arises or if Israel even perceives the need arising, it must strike first.  And never should Israel ever fall into the trap of banning any kind of weapon.  There is nothing in any way less “moral” about a huge weapon of destruction than a small one.  Any weapon that is used to kill people in an immoral war is bad.  Any weapon used to kill vicious enemies in a war of survival is a mitzvah.

Israel should make no bones about, and should not be shy in any way about telling the world that it plans to have one of the world’s most potent and efficient arsenals of what is stupidly called “unconventional weapons” “conventional” forces far outnumber Israel’s and who are working feverishly to obtain nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them.  Israel should have every possible weapon of mass destruction imaginable and deal with the question, “but will that not give the Arabs an excuse to do the same,” with the nausea it deserves.

It is best that no one bomb.  But it is better, far, far better, to bomb than to be bombed.  It is better to gas than to be gassed.  And when dealing with Saddams and Arabs – that is the only language they will ever understand.  Learn the lesson.

SEVEN: The last and most important lesson, without which all the others will avail us nothing.  Return unto G-d, quickly, now, now, now.  We and all that is ours are in His hands.  The Saddams of this world are nothing before Him, and yet, everything, if G-d hides His face from us.  Of course, we must strike Saddam, but the hawks of this world who devour shrimps are too small to help the Jewish people.  They understand nothing that is Jewish.  And yet, the lesson is so clear, the lesson of G-d and history.

 

Two things are the call of the hour:  Return to the L-rd, G-d of Israel.  And wipe out Iraq’s power.  Now.

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Is It Good For The Jews (voting) 1971-72

MEIR KAHANE

WRITINGS
1971-73  5732-33

IS IT GOOD FOR THE JEWS

 

For decades, large numbers of American Jews and the vast majority of their leadership have been practicing the art of national suicide.  Faced with the loss of an elementary understanding that is possessed by even the most backward and primitive of people – that vital issues should be judged on the basis of national self-interest – Jews have consistently vowed fealty to ‘objectivity’, regularly placed liberal or “humanitarian” concepts over Jewish ones and worked tirelessly to destroy themselves.

 
Any normal people realize that groups base decisions upon self-interest.  Any normal people realizes that democracy is a conglomerate of pressure and self-interest groups with farmers, consumers, unions, Catholics, Blacks and all kinds of lobbyists constantly striving to assure that their interests be served.  Apparently, the Exile has so warped and terrified certain Jews that they strive to escape their Jewishness and the persecution that accrues from it, by becoming citizens of the world and “humans,” thus gaining love and safety from anti-Semitism. 

It is insecurity, fear and drive to assimilate that lead certain Jews to back causes that are blatantly anti-Jewish.  Thus, some Jews become Marxists in face of the fact that Marxism means the elimination of Jews both as a religion and nation.  Certain Jews become “humanists” despite – or because of – the subsequent blurring of all division between Jew and non-Jew. Others, retain their Jewishness, but insist upon being liberals before Jews and think a liberal world guarantees safety for the Jew.  All these groups have been proven wrong a thousand times over and the fact remains that the Jew can new never purchase his safety, security and peace at the expense of his own identity, specifically separate existence.  The one way to assure that identity and the survival of the Jew as a separate entity, is through Jewish self-interest.

 

Progress for Blacks does NOT, as we have been assured, necessarily guarantee Jewish progress.  Liberal support for downtrodden people in no way necessarily assures Jewish survival.  Being a liberal is not always synonymous with Jewish interests (and the same holds true for being a conservative).

 
It is vital for the Jew – if he wishes to survive – to understand a number of basic axioms:

1.      Unless the Jew aids himself there is no one else who will come to his rescue in time of great and critical need.  The fact is so historically true that it is inexplicable that it is not self-obvious.

 2.      Jews, in order to survive, must continually gird their resources and

      strength for Jewish causes and aims since no one else will.

 3.        In assessing every issue and politician the Jew should always use the 

        yardstick: Is it good for the Jews?

 

This latter point may distress a great many liberal Jews.  It will surely not upset militant blacks who work along this principle for their own people continually and who understand the extent of white hostility and the need for Black power for Black interests.  Indeed, the growing awareness of self within the ranks of ethnics all over the country gives the lie to the absurd myth of the Melting Pot.  No one merits: in the end ethnic and religious ties – inward national pulls – are far more powerful than international and supranational movements.  It is little wonder that after 50 years of Soviet rule, Ukrainians and other groups retain and strengthen their own identity and the Great Russians retain their strangle hold on the Soviet Establishment.  It is not surprising that 27 years of Tito can do nothing about the rise of Serbian-Croat rivalry and the Communist Albania and Yugoslavia have an Albanian ethnic problem.

No one melts except frightened people who attempt to.  In the end they either dissolve completely or are rejected by the host body.  The solution to survival and respect in this world is not to attempt to lose oneself but to find; not to escape from but to return to the source of one’s beginnings.  One who does not know from whence he came will never know where he is going.  Some day we may build a better world but it will never come until each of us regains his own separate identity and self-respect.  Only with that self-respect can we respect others and only when others respect us will they truly accept our hand in friendship

 

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Elul - 1977

R A B B I   M E I R   K A H A N E
ON JEWS AND JUDAISM
2 Elul 5737 - September 2, 1977
 

Elul

 

The Jewish calendar is full of notations, red letter days that are meant to be both particular reminders as well as part of a uniform one:  time is passing; the sands of life have run out just a bit more; the beard is a little grayer and the limbs just a touch heavier.  Time.  The Jewish calendar is a watchman of time, ram’s horn that blows not once a year but every time that a new time cycle begins.

Every week is marked by a Sabbath that notes not only the end of the week passed but the beginning of a new one. It is both a reminder of seven full days passed out of our life – so soon! – as well as the opportunity to make the next period fuller, more meaningful, a reason for being.

Every month is marked by a Rosh Chodesh, the consecration of the new beginning of yet another lunar cycle.  The wheel of heaven has revolved yet another thirty days – so soon! – and we are that much older.  The L-rd now gives us another month to prove that we are also that much wiser.  It is not only another month, it is a new month.   Above all, it is called Rosh Chodesh, the “head” of the month.  Is there perhaps here a hint to see how much wisdom has filled our heads during the mistakes and sins of the past one…?

And every year has its Rosh Hashana, that peculiarly Jewish day in which there are no parties and drinking and abandonment of restraint; in which there is no hilarious laughter and noise that is a frantic and frenetic attempt to convince all (and oneself) that he is happy; there is no frantic clutching at pleasure before it escapes and – worse  - before I pass on; too soon, too soon.  There is Rosh Hashana, the time past.  Another year gone by – already?  So soon! – and it is a time to see what the gray hairs and the added wrinkles and the slower reflexes have taught us.  Rosh Hashana is one step closer to the gateway out of this world and into the next one.  It is a time to rehearse the speech that we will make – all of us – some day, before the Supremes of Courts, as we attempt to explain the meaning of our lives below.

Life is too short for fools.  It is too long for those who know it was not given for happiness (if that comes, how wonderful, but how often does it appear, only in insignificant measures and at rare times, as drops of rain that fall on a parched desert leaving no impact, changing nothing so that the traveler never knows it fell).  Life was given for holiness and sanctity, so that we might rise above ourselves; so that we might consecrate and hallow that animalism within us that threatens at every moment to escape and express itself in selfishness, ego and greed – sins that are themselves only the corridors to the crimes of cruelty and hurting others.  Life is not a happy thing – it is a beautiful thing, and when one becomes the artist and artisan of that beauty that is called holiness, when one practices the supreme holiness that comes of loving and giving of oneself.

“Ani  l’dodi  v’dodi li…”  “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine…”  the words of the greatest of love poems, Song of Songs; great because it is that purest of love, between the Almighty and the House of Israel.  Consider them, for do they not contain the essence and the secret of true love?  “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”  When I am my beloved’s, when I give to her and give of myself and live to do for her and make her happy – then I am guaranteed that she is mine for she will, in turn, be doing the same for me.  The lovers who think of giving to each other must receive from each other.  This is love, this desire to give, this desire to sacrifice and do for the other.

Not for nothing was the Song of Songs called by the incomparable Rabbi Akiva, “the Holy of Holies” of all the books of the Bible.  For the kind of love expressed in it IS holiness.  Holiness is to escape from the selfishness and greed of the animal; it is to smash the passions and desires of the ego; it is to master the will that makes man seek only his own gratification.  And is not love just that, in practice?  Is not love exactly that, if it is true love?

 

And not for no reason did the rabbis see in the Hebrew letters of the month of Elul the first letters of  “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li – I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”  Elul is the month of Tshuva, return and introspection.  It is the month of scraping away the ego that has settled and crusted on our hearts and souls.  If Passover calls for searching out he leaven in the home, Elul decrees removing it – the yeasty and bloated ego – from the soul.  It is a time to note the calendar, the graying and aging, and to realize: Not for nonsense was I born and not with nonsense must they bury me.

 

Be good.  Love.  Love selflessly; cease speaking evil, cease thinking evil; cease searching out evil in your fellow human beings.  Cease seeking to grow at the expense of others.  For one who climbs on top of the man he has just chopped down is not taller.  He is the same dwarf standing on his victim’s height.  Be wary lest you hurt the one you love.  Think before you act towards the other person.  Be good as a person, as an individual, and your part of the world will become holy.  Then, if others emulate you, the world will suddenly and automatically turn beautiful and hallowed.  It is Elul.  Think of your beloved – all the people of the earth – and think of your particular beloved.  Give of yourself and you will receive that which no amount of grasping and scheming can ever bring you: self-respect.  Love the other and you will learn to like yourself.  Be holy, for the One who made you is Holy and for this He placed you on this earth.  It is another Elul, yet another one.  How many more are left?

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