K A H A
N E
The
magazine of the Authentic Jewish Idea
March-April
1989 Adar-Nissan 5749
Arrogance
of Ignorance
In day
days when men were humble enough to know what they were – and what they were
not; what they knew – and what they did not, the ignoramus knew his place. Whatever arrogance existed was the province
of those who were, at least, nominally scholars. And so, while ignorance and arrogance are
both attributes to be shunned, their separation was at least a small favor for
which to be grateful. But, times have
changed and we are today, victims of the ultimate curse – the arrogance of
ignorance. The unabashed and haughty
readiness to display one’s abysmal and absurd ignorance before people and
congregation is the symbol of our wretched times.
The
latest exhibitionist of sheer nescience is one Yitzhak Ro’eh, a leftist writer
for the Histadrut Daily Davar. What
prompted his latest outburst of superficiality was anger. Mr. Ro’eh is angry.
And why
is Mr. Ro’eh angry? Because, following
an attempt by four Arab terrorists to infiltrate into Israel and murder Jews,
the Israeli Army superbly met them and eliminated all of them. And then – and
this is what causes the blood to rise in Mr. Ro’eh’s head – and then,
photographers were allowed to snap photos of the dead terrorists who had sought
to murder Jews.
“Gevald!” shouts Mr. Ro’eh who – as we will soon see, is
a very moral person. What an outrage
against decency and morality to rejoice and exhibit the bodies of four people
who attempted to murder Jews and were killed by the Jewish army. Or in his words:
“Every
person and his own associations. When I
saw the large color photos of the four terrorists who were eliminated in
Lebanon, the following line from the Passover Hagada, began to ring in
my ear: ‘The work of my hands are drowning in the sea and you sing?’”
And Mr.
Ro’eh then spends the next four paragraphs detailing all the things that were
outrageous about those photographs, and concludes: “All this adds up to a growing
insensitivity, a deepening dulling of the senses… The one who wrote ‘do not
rejoice when your enemy falls,’ would, probably, agree with me: When your enemy falls do not be photographed
with him.
One
hardly knows where to begin to plough through this trash heap of utterly foul
ignorance and arrogance. But we shall
try. To begin with, the words, “the work
of My hands are drowning in the sea…” do not appear anywhere in the Hagada but
are to be found in the Babylonian Talmud (Megila 10b and Sanhedrin 39b), an
area of Jewish knowledge that remains for Ro’eh the ignoramus, a dark, exotic,
virgin area, untouched by him or his study.
Indeed the utter superficiality of the man leads one to wonder whether,
when he writes “the one who wrote ‘do not rejoice,’ etc…,” does he really know who did write it.
In any
event, one more thought before disposing of the arrogant ignoramus. I am always impressed by the intellectual
fraud that is an inevitable part of all the secular haters of Judaism of
observant Jews. They are blessed with an
amazing ability to selectively choose what they wish from the very same books
of Judaism that are filled with verses, sayings, concepts and laws that run
counter to the most basic things in which they believe. The very same religious books they despise
for “racism,” “cruelty,” “barbarity” and “obscurantism,” suddenly become proper
repositories of truth when they spy in them a thing that apparently
agrees with their own warped concepts.
Intellectual honesty was never the strong suit of the schizophrenic
secularists, leftists and Hellenists who lack the courage to entirely drop the
Jewishness they so desperately despise.
In any
event, back to Mr. Ro’eh, so that we can dispose of him before the same people
and congregation in whose presence he so arrogantly displayed his naked
ignorance. The need to do this is compounded
a thousand times over by the fact that the ignoramus Ro’eh is joined not only
by so many semi-ignorant others, but worst of all – by so many tortured
Moderdox types who cannot bear to accept the stark truth of authentic Jewish
values
As
always, the Ro’ehs (and others) of the world selectively and very partially
quote the Talmud. The selection they
bring down really begins with R. Yeshoshua ben Levi starting his lecture on Megilat
Esther with the verse “As the L-rd rejoiced over you (“sas”) to do you
good, so the L-rd will rejoice over you (“yasis”) to cause you to perish.”
(Dvarim 28). And the Talmud asks: Does
the Almighty then rejoice over the fall of the wicked? And to prove that he does not rejoice, the
story of the angels asking to sing praise is brought. And this is where Ro’eh, the ignoramus,
stops. But there is more. The Talmud continues with answers as follows:
“Rabbi
Elazar said: it is true that He
does not rejoice, but he causes others to rejoice.”
Ah, what
a difference. And a clear answer to the
obvious question: If G-d does not want
us to rejoice and praise Him when our enemy falls why in the world does it say:
“Then Moses and the children of
Israel sing this song unto the L-rd…?” (Shmot15)
And a
clear answer to why the rabbis say: (Mechilta,
B’shalach, II): “The L-rd shall perform
for you miracles and glories and you will stand and do nothing? Said Israel unto Moses: What are we to do? Said he unto them: You will glorify and praise and give song and
glory and greatness to the One to whom wars belong.”
Of
course the Almighty, the totality of compassion, the Father of all, grieves for
His children – all of them. He does
not sing. His angels, who are not of
this world, do not sing. But the Jews do. Not only are they allowed to, they are
commanded to… For the very same reason that the very same Almighty, though
He does not sing, does destroy the work of His hands because they are evil.
Yes, of
course He grieves. He grieves that those
who were made in His image have so perverted and destroyed the greatness of
that image. That those who were made in
the image of good, were so evil. And so,
He grieves for the perversion of His purpose in making the world, for His works
that have so gone astray. And in His
grief He does not have pity: He destroys
them: He knows that evil and He cannot share the same world, as our rabbis
say: “As long as the wicked rule in
the world, the Holy One Blessed be He, so to speak, cannot sit on His throne.”
(Yalkut Tehilim, Chapter 47).
And so,
because the arrogance of the enemy of the Jewish people, their brazen
persecution of the people of G-d with no fear of G-d, is the very essence of Hillul
Hashem, the Almighty in wrath destroys them and the Children of Israel must
sing and glorify G-d. And thus do the
rabbis declare (Shmot Raba 23): “then
did Moses and the Children of Israel sing,” this is what is meant by the verse
(Psalms’ 9): “The L-rd is known by the
judgment He executes.” This speaks of
Egypt whom G-d smote at the Red Sea.”
The seal
of the Almighty is truth and only that truth will emerge from His lips and His
teachings. One imagines the agony of the
soul that Ro’eh must endure every Purim as all the misguided and insensitive
and sense-dulled Jews celebrate, rejoice and drink to the death of their enemy,
Haman. One sees the lonely Ro’eh the
lost of the Just sitting gloomily alone in his apartment, bemoaning the
spiritual fall of the Jew and the spread of Kahanism among us all. Even as the Jewish people rejoice on Purim.
Mr. Roe’h sits with the following ringing through his ear: “The work of My hand…”
Donkey, Immoral Moralist, Arrogant Ignoramus. He opposes rejoicing over the death of those
who would destroy us. The Donkey of
Morality – Yitzhak Ro’e
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