The Shechem Massacre Binyamin Kahane

Kahane on the Parsha

Rabbi Binyamin Kahane- Parshat VaYechi

THE SHECHEM MASSACRE

Jacob's curse of Shimon and Levi in our parsha raises the perennial question: Were they correct in wiping out Shechem's male population or not?

One who reads Parshat VaYechi can easily reach the conclusion that the question is answered by Jacob when he says, "Cursed be their anger for it is fierce..." (Genesis 49:7). These words refer to the massacre of Shechem, and they certainly seem to put the deed in a negative light. Indeed, this is how many love to interpret Jacob's curse, condemning Shimon and Levi for their actions in Shechem.

But numerous observations challenge this simplistic understanding. First, whoever reads Parshat VaYishlach will notice that the Torah concludes the story with Shimon and Levi having the upper hand. For in response to Jacob's argument- "You have brought trouble on me to make odious among the inhabitants of the land"- Shimon and Levi promptly answer, "Shall he make of our sister a harlot?" And thus the story ends, without a peep from Jacob, with the brothers clearly putting the matter to rest.

More than that, pay attention to the argument of Jacob. He does not censure them for MORAL reasons. He does not criticize them for wiping out an entire city unjustly. NO! This is NOT his argument. His is a PRACTICAL one- that all the surrounding nations will attack him now.

And if the reader is not yet convinced, know what it says in the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabba 2:7) - that on the flag of Shimon was nothing other than an illustration of the city of Shechem! Now ask yourself: Would Shimon place an illustration of something on his flag that recalled a sin? Clearly, then, the act of Shimon and Levi was proper.

And the fact is, none of the Jewish commentators condemn the act. The Rambam, for one, explains that Shimon and Levi were justified because the people of Shechem did not put Shechem ben Chamor on trial for raping Dina, making them liable to death under the 7 Noahide laws. The Maharal disagrees, arguing that one can't expect a people to put their prince, whom they fear, on trial. He therefore suggests that the Children of Israel behaved as is customary in all wars, exacting collective punishment.

If Shimon and Levi acted properly, though, why does Jacob curse them in Parshat VaYechi?

The answer lies in their motive. Jacob realized that their impulse in wiping out Shechem wasn't entirely pure. When did Jacob conclude this? When it became clear that the major culprits in the selling of Joseph were the very same Shimon and Levi, as the Rabbis tell us (Tanchuma, VaYechi 9).

In other words, the brothers' plot to kill Joseph- headed by Shimon and Levi- shed light on their actions in Shechem. It indicated that their deed was not purely l'sheim shamayim but, rather, stemmed in part from anger. And so Jacob cursed "their anger for it is fierce." Jacob did not curse THEM, but rather their ANGER.

Interestingly enough, we find that the tribe of Levi took Jacob's curse to heart and improved itself. The tribe continued acting zealously- it was the Levites who slew their brethren for the sin of the Golden Calf and it was Pinchas who stood up for G-d's honor by killing Zimri- but the motivation was now purely l'sheim shamayim. Levi's zealotry was no longer tainted by anger.

The tribe of Shimon, in contrast, never succeeded in purifying itself. Whom did Pinchas kill? Zimri, from the tribe of Shimon- a Jewish leader who brazenly and impetuously committed the same type of sin for which his ancestor once wiped out an entire city.

Darka Shel Torah, 1992

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Rebbitzen Libby Kahane is happy to announce that the second volume, “Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought, 1983-1976” is available on Amazon.com. The book comes up immediately when you type into the main search box: Meir Kahane Life 1976

Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought, 1976-1983” (volume 2), has been published. and now available in Israel. Can be bought from Yeshivat Haraayon Hayehudi (02-5823540) and from Pomeranz Books (02-6235559). Cost of book 88 NIS

Newly published “Kahane on the Parsha” can be bought at the following  links on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kahane-Parsha-Meir/dp/098867680X , it's also available on website, www.BrennBooks.com

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I Am Not Ashamed - 1989

Kahane on the Parsha

I Am Not Ashamed

I am not ashamed to admit it.  I am afraid.  I am afraid that my people and my state are marching inexorably to a horror that can best be unimagined.  And I am afraid, for the first time, that we are in the hands of people so blind and so mad and so un-Jewish that we may not be able, G-d forbid, to avert the catastrophe.

Last week I was at the Western Wall.  It was the Friday, after the Friday when the Moslems, standing on the Temple Mount – our Temple Mount – hurled rocks and stones on the Jews praying below.  It was the Friday after the Friday when Jews, in the sovereign State of Israel, praying at the remains of the Holy Temple, fled in panic from the Moslems who cried “Allahu akbbar!” It was the Friday after the Friday in which Jews in the State of Israel fled in panic from Moslems who proclaimed their dream of destroying the Jewish state.

I was at the Wall on the Friday after the Friday.  No less than 3,000(!) security forces were there to protect the Jews in their own state from Moslems who once so trembled before the Jew.  Three thousand(!) security forces to protect Jews – who were so frightened that they stayed away in droves.  The proud State of Israel….

I am afraid.  I am afraid that the Jews of insanity who run this land will destroy us, even as all the impossible Herut fools in the United States continue to write columns attacking the PLO.

 I am afraid.  Last week, I was at the Hebron Jewish cemetery.  I saw the swastikas and the Arab graffiti of hate on the walls.  I saw the desecrated tombstones.  I watched as the Jews held a memorial service.

A memorial service!  They murder us and they desecrate us and we react with memorial services!

That day a rock smashed through the car window of a Jew traveling in Bethlehem, injuring him in the temple, cheek, and shoulder.  That day, 600 apple and 50 olive trees were destroyed along with tens of thousands of commercial flowers at the settlement of Nvei Michael.  But, I return to the cemetery.

How many people, how many Jews, in the world heard of the Hebron cemetery outrage?  No matter.  How should they have heard of it when the prime minister of Israel, the president of Israel, in its Knesset, and its governmental leaders did not find it necessary to shout their indignation.

A week of Chaillul Hashem, of desecration.  And the men who run this State of Disorder sit by, hapless and impotent, silent partners to desecration.  And I know that the Almighty’s

rage will lash out at us for allowing His Name to be defiled.  I am afraid for much more.

Last week I watched as the insanity spread and reached new heights.  The Border Police, the elite security forces, were sent to make arrests in the murderous village of Nahalin.  They were attacked by hundreds of stone-throwing, Molotov cocktail-throwing Arabs.  The Border Police, under a murderous barrage, fired and killed four Arabs.  Only four Arabs.  The Arabs shrieked in protest; the pathologically sick leftists joined them and demanded an “investigation”, the army command, led by two kibbutz members, chief of Staff Don Shomron and Central Command OC Amram Mitzna, so ordered.  The Border Police were accused of “overreacting” and “indiscriminate shooting,” and two of their officers were suspended from duty.

I am afraid. Yesterday they destroyed the army with their insane orders that gobbled the troops, causing them to fear to deal with the Arabs as normal soldier should.  Today, the take the best of the security forces, the Border Police, and destroy them, too.  And they must be stopped before they destroy the Jewish state – and the Jew.

They protest over Nahalin?  They investigate attacks on Nahalin?  Do you know what Nahalin is?  Do you know who the Arabs of Nahalin are?  Of course not, so read.  And learn.  And grow angry and bitter – and do something.

In 1948, the villagers of Nahalin participated in the massacre of 35 Jewish students coming to the rescue of Kfar Etzion.  They murdered them in cold blood.  In 1954, two Jews were murdered by Nahalin villagers leading to a reprisal raid on the village by Israel.  At that time, the UN condemned the Jews.  Today, the Jews do.

When Israel liberated the land in 1967, the normal, sane thing to have done would have been to drive the scum out.  But we are not normal.  We are not sane.  We allowed them to remain along with all the rest of them – the murderous Ishmalites who cannot live with Jews or themselves (and let us raise a toast to gloriously peaceful Beirut).  And now we investigate and condemn our Border Police for having “fired indiscriminately” on the village that murdered Jews yesterday, that dreams of murdering them tomorrow, and that attacked the Border Police with hate and rocks and firebombs in their hands.

We are insane.  We are in the hands of leaders who are insane and who march us down the road to horror and destruction.  I am afraid.

I am afraid of a government that, instead of supporting the men whom they send into war (and this is a war!); instead of giving them accolades and medals for killing the Arab enemy (and they are the enemy – all of them) – investigates them, censures them, disciplines them.  Insanity. And I am afraid.

I am afraid.  Last week I watched as the police indicted Rabbi Moshe Levinger for doing that which any normal human being would.  Driving in the heart of Hebron, a nest of snakes and scorpions, a city of Arabs with Jewish blood on their hands from 1929 – his car was attacked and a stone smashed its window.   He ran out shooting at the Jew-haters and killed one.  A pity.  One.  He was indicted and I am afraid.  For I fear that we may be lost.

I see the leftists who control the state news media even as the pathetic Shamir government does nothing. I see that daily barrage of the state-sponsored self-hate and self-destruction aimed at destroying the morale of the security forces, while the tiny people who run this tiny government sit impotent.  I see the defeatists who run the Likud-controlled Ministry of Justice indicting Jews who were attacked, even as the army does the same to its soldiers, and the government of Shamir sits in its perpetual transcendental silence.  I watch Shamir and his Likud sell out Israel through the kind of deception we learned from Begin.  He prepares elections that will seal the sovereignty of the “Palestinians” over the land, as it leads to the autonomy of Camp David that will whet the Arab appetite and increase the Jewish dementia and result in a “Palestinian” state that will be a dagger in Israel’s heart.

I see all this and know that if we are to save the Jewish state and its three-and-a-half million Jews from terrible horrors, we must rise up and demand a fundamental change in the very system of government.  We must throw out those who destroy us from within, and keep them out.  I know that this present system of government that allows them to control our lives and lead us to destruction must be ended.  I know that elections must be limited only to those who understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of the Jewish state, who would bring on us a slow Auschwitz – not with gas, but with knives and hatchets.  I know that only groups which accept the following program should be allowed to run for office: 

To finish the Arab war against Israel with every means at our disposal and an end to the immoral and sick “pity” for them; to remove the Arabs from the land once and for all; to annex Judea-Samaria-Gaza and make them part of the Jewish state; to radically overhaul the bankrupt education of Israel by infusing our children with Judaism and true nationalism; and to cleanse Israel radio and television of the mad and dangerous leftists who, daily, destroy us from within.

I know that unless the people rise up and demand such a national referendum, to dissolve the Knesset and vote on such a program, we are lost.  And I am afraid.

Written in The Jewish Press 1989

 Anyone reading this Rabbi Meir Kahane article and is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles written by Rabbi Kahane and would like to be, please contact me at:

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To view articles written by Rabbi Meir Kahane go to blog:

www.barbaraginsberg-kahane.blogspot.com

Newly published “Kahane on the Parsha” can be bought at the following  links on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kahane-Parsha-Meir/dp/098867680X , it's also available on website, www.BrennBooks.com

To view Rabbi Meir Kahane site of Youtubes, Videos. CDs posted by Michael Miller go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/bayitvegan

Rebbitzen Libby Kahane is happy to announce that the second volume, “Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought, 1983-1976” is available on Amazon.com. The book comes up immediately when you type into the main search box: Meir Kahane Life 1976

Due to the high cost of shipping books from Israel to America (and vice versa), we are using Amazon’s print-on-demand service for Americans and are planning to print here in Israel for Israelis. The hardcover book will be ready in Israel hopefully within a month.

You can see a description of the new volume on Amazon athttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1518870619…

Newly published “Kahane on the Parsha” can be bought at the following  links on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kahane-Parsha-Meir/dp/098867680X , it's also available on website, www.BrennBooks.com

  

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Down With Chanukah - 1972

Rabbi Meir Kahane Writings (5732-33) (1971-73)

Down with Chanukah

Written December 15, 1972

If I were a Reform rabbi; if I were a leader of the Establishment whose money and prestige have succeeded in capturing for him the leadership and voice of American Jewry; if I were one of the members of the Israeli Government’s ruling group; if I were an enlightened sophisticated, modern Jewish intellectual, I would climb the barricades and join in battle against the most dangerous of all Jewish holidays – Chanukah.

It is a measure of the total ignorance of the world Jewish community that there is no holiday that is more universally celebrated than the “Feast of Lights”, and it is an equal measure of the intellectual dishonesty and of Jewish leadership that it plays along with the lie.  For if ever there was a holiday that stands for everything that the mass of world Jewry and their leadership has rejected – it is this one.  If one would find an event that is truly rooted in everything that Jews of our times and their leaders have rejected and, indeed, attacked – it is this one.  If there is any holiday that is more “unJewish” in the sense of our modern beliefs and practices – I do not know of it.

The Chanukah that has erupted unto the world Jewish scene in all its childishness, asininity, shallowness, ignorance and fraud – is not the Chanukah of reality.  The Chanukah that came into vogue because of Jewish parents – in their vapidness – needed something to counteract Christmas; that exploded in a show of “we-can-have-lights-just-as-our-goyish-neighbors” and in an effort to reward our spoiled children with eight gifts instead of the poor Christian one; the Chanukah that the Temple, under its captive rabbi, turned into a school pageant so that the beaming parents might think that the Religious School is really successful instead of the tragic joke and waste that it really is; the Chanukah that speaks of Jewish Patrick Henrys giving-me-liberty-or death and the pictures of Maccabees as great liberal saviors who fought so that the kibbutzim might continue to be free to preach their Marx and eat their ham, that the split-level dwellers of suburbia might be allowed to violate their Sabbath in perfect freedom and the Reform and Conservative Temples continue the fight for civil rights for Blacks, Puerto Ricans and Jane Fonda, is not remotely connected with reality. 

This is NOT the Chanukah of our ancestors, of the generations of Jews of Eastern Europe and Yemen and Morocco and the crusades and Spain and Babylon.  It is surely not the Chanukah for which the Maccabees themselves died.  Truly, could those whom we honor so munificently, return and see what Chanukah has become, they might very well begin a second Maccabean revolt.  For the life that we Jews lead today was the very cause, the REAL reason for the revolt of the Jews “in those days in our times.”  

What happened in that era more than 2000 years ago?  What led a handful of Jews to rise up in violence against the enemy?  And precisely who WAS the enemy?  What were they fighting FOR and who were they fighting AGAINST?

           

For years, the people of Judea had been the vassals of Greece.  True independence as a state had been unknown for all those decades and, yet, the Jews did not rise up in revolt.  It was only when the Greek policy shifted from mere political control to one that attempted to suppress the Jewish religion that the revolt erupted in all its bloodiness.  It was not mere liberty that led to the Maccabean uprising that we so passionately applaud.  What we are really cheering is a brave group of Jews who fought and plunged Judea into a bloodbath for the right to observe the Sabbath, to follow the laws of kashruth, to obey the laws of the Torah.  IN A WORD EVERYTHING ABOUT CHANUKAH THAT WE COMMEMORATE AND TEACH OUR CHILDREN TO COMMEMORATE ARE THINGS WE CONSIDER TO BE OUTMODED, MEDIEVAL AND CHILDISH!

           

At best, then, those who fought and died for Chanukah were naïve and obscurantist.  Had we lived in those days we would certainly not have done what they did for everyone knows that the laws of the Torah are not really Divine but only the products of evolution and men (do not the Reform, Reconstructionist and large parts of the Conservative movements write this daily?)  Surely we would not have fought for that which we violate every day of our lives!  No, at best Chanukah emerges as a needless holiday if not a foolish one.  Poor Hannah and her seven children; poor Mattathias and Judah; poor well meaning chaps all but hopelessly backward and utterly unnecessary sacrifices.

           

But there is more.  Not only is Chanukah really a foolish and unnecessary holiday, it is also one that is dangerously fanatical and illiberal. The first act of rebellion, the first enemy who fell at the hands of the brave Jewish heroes whom our delightful children portray so cleverly in their Sunday and religious school pageants, was NOT a Greek.  He was a Jew.

When the enemy sent its troops into the town of Modin to set up an idol and demand its worship, it was a Jew who decided to exercise his freedom of pagan worship and who approached the altar to worship Zeus (after all, what business was it of anyone what this fellow worshipped?)  And it was this Jew, this apostate, this religious traitor who was struck down by the brave, glorious, courageous (are these not the words all our Sunday schools use to describe him?) Mattathias, as he shouted: “Whoever is for G-d, follow me!”  

What have we here?  What kind of religious intolerance and bigotry?  What kind of a man is this for the anti-religious of Hashomer Hatzair, the graceful temples of suburbia, the sophisticated intellectuals, the liberal open-minded Jews and all the drones who have wearied us unto death with the concept of Judaism as a humanistic, open-minded, undogmatic, liberal, universalistic (if not Marxist) religion, to honor?  What kind of nationalism is this for David-Ben-Gurion (he who rejects the Galut and speaks of the proud, free Jew of ancient Judea and Israel)?

And to crush us even more (we who know that Judaism is a faith of peace which deplores violence), what kind of Jews were these who reacted to oppression with FORCE?  Surely we who so properly have deplored Jewish violence as fascistic, immoral and (above all!) UN-JEWISH, stand in horror as we contemplate Jews who declined to picket the Syrian Greeks to death and who rejected quiet diplomacy for the sword, spear and arrow (had there been bombs in those days, who can tell what they might have done?) and “descended to the level of evil,” thus rejecting the ethical and moral concepts of Judaism.

Is this the kind of a holiday we wish to propagate?  Are these the kinds of men we want our moral and humanistic children to honor?  Is this the kind of Judaism that we wish to observe and pass on to our children?

Where shall we find the man of courage the one voice, in the wilderness to cry out against Chanukah and the Judaism that it represents-the Judaism of our grandparents and ancestors?  Where shall we find the man of honesty and integrity to attack the Judaism of Medievalism and outdated foolishness; the Judaism of bigotry that strikes down Jews who refuse to observe the law; the Judaism of violence that calls for Jewish force and might against the enemy?  When shall we find the courage to proudly eat our Chinese food and violate our Sabbaths and reject all the separateness, nationalism and religious maximalism that Chanukah so ignobly represents?  …Down with Chanukah!  It is a regressive holiday that merely symbolizes the Judaism that always was; the Judaism that was handed down to us from Sinai; the Judaism that made our ancestors ready to give their lives for the L-rd; the Judaism that young people instinctively know is true and great and real.  Such Judaism is dangerous for us and our leaders.  We must do all in our power to bury it.

Anyone reading this Rabbi Meir Kahane article and is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles written by Rabbi Kahane and would like to be, please contact me at barbaraandchaim@gmail.com

To view articles written by Rabbi Meir Kahane go to blog:

www.barbaraginsberg-kahane.blogspot.com

To view Rabbi Meir Kahane site of Youtubes, Videos. CDs posted by Michael Miller go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/bayitvegan

Rebbitzen Libby Kahane is happy to announce that the second volume, “Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought, 1983-1976” is available on Amazon.com. The book comes up immediately when you type into the main search box: Meir Kahane Life 1976

Due to the high cost of shipping books from Israel to America (and vice versa), we are using Amazon’s print-on-demand service for Americans and are planning to print here in Israel for Israelis. The hardcover book will be ready in Israel hopefully within a month.

You can see a description of the new volume on Amazon athttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1518870619…

Newly published “Kahane on the Parsha” can be bought at the following  links on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kahane-Parsha-Meir/dp/098867680X , it's also available on website, www.BrennBooks.com

Facebook Links: 

Michael ben-Ari- Jewish Strength:

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