Kahane on the Parsha
Rabbi Meir Kahane- Parshat Nitzavim
IS THE HOLOCAUST REALLY INEXPLICABLE?
"But if you heart turns away so that you will not hear, but will be drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you this day that you will surely perish..." (Deuteronomy 30:17-18).
Whenever anyone asks how G-d could have allowed the Holocaust to take place, it is fashionable to reply, "There is no answer to this question." But our failure to grapple with this issue has caused us to be silent accomplices in the worst of all Jewish sins and crimes: chiruf v'giduf, blasphemy against the L-rd, open insult and attack on His Name, Chillul Hashem. We sit by quietly while Jewish ignoramuses and blasphemers speak of the "death of G-d." And our children turn down the path of apostasy and atheism because our only reply to the attacks of the blasphemers is: "No one can answer the question."
But the Holocaust- like the slaughter during the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Chmelnitzki Massacres- has an answer. It is one that we read twice yearly: "If you don't listen to the voice of the L-rd...then all these curses will come upon you" (ibid. 28:15).
What is the origin of our dumbness and failure to understand? From where cometh this sudden stupor: "It is a question no one can answer..."?
Of course we can answer it, but the irreligious Jew, the one who does not accept the divinity of the Torah, refuses to accept an answer which lays the blame upon HIM, upon the Jew who- knowing of the warning- ignored and disdained it. No, since it is impossible to accept the relationship between Jewish suffering and failure to obey the Law, one must blame G-d. One must ask how the modern G-d, a beaming Santa Claus who would never take seriously our desecration of mitzvot, could do such a thing.
In truth, the Orthodox Jew is also to blame. He has created a picture of a saintly European Jewry that leads people to wonder how G-d could have punished such righteous people. This picture, though, is false. It is an image the yeshiva world gave us in its desire to negate the present materialistic, Western one. But by falsely idealizing Man, they have laid the groundwork for the desecration of G-d. By painting the East European Jew as a saint, they designed a G-d of cruelty and irrationality. That most terrible of sins must be ended. We must save G-d and sanctify His Name by telling the truth about European Jewry in the years preceding the Holocaust.
Yes, as the nineteenth century passed into its third quarter, the Jew of Russia and Poland was, indeed, observant. But what else could he be? The overwhelming number of Jews lived in a Pale of Settlement where they were isolated from the gentile world and barred from participating in anything else except the society of the shtetl. And that society was religious, in toto...What Jew, even if he wanted to, was prepared to rebel against the society that laid down the religious rules of life? Who was prepared to accept the ostracism that would be his inevitable punishment if he dared throw off the halacha? And so, of course, the Jew was "religious." He had no other choice.
But once that choice arrived, look at what happened!!!! The Enlightenment that began to arrive in Eastern Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century quickly swept away a society and structure that had been built up for centuries. Vilna- which had become a byword for piety and Torah learning- gave birth to the Bund, a bitterly anti-religious, anti-nationalist group that saw Jews, who just yesterday were "religious," flocking to its ranks to spout atheistic socialism. Poland and Russia and Lithuania and Galicia- the places that gave us the Rema and the Shach and Chassidim and the great yeshivas- OVERNIGHT gave birth to Jewish communism and socialism and secular Zionism and assimilation. The moment the barriers dropped, the Jew rebelled. This was the reality, and the fault, dear Jews, lies not in G-d but IN OURSELVES!!!
And there was, of course, more. There was the terrible oppression of Jewish workers and proletariat by the wealthy Jews, the PARNASIM. Not for nothing did the Bund and communism succeed so easily in attracting poor Jewish workers to their ranks. The low wages and horrible working conditions in the factories owned by Jews are epitomized in the classic story told about the saintly Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev who once visited a matzah bakery on the eve of Passover. There, he saw women and little children working under terrible conditions from dawn to dusk. "Dear G-d," he said, lifting his eyes unto heaven, "what liars are the gentiles! They accuse us of using Christian blood in our matzah. It is not true. We use Jewish blood."
And too few know the black chapter of the kidnapped Jewish children of Czarist Russia. When the czar decreed that Jewish children be drafted as "Cantonists" in the army for 25 years, the rabbis declared that the quota imposed on each community be filled by casting lots to see which child would be drafted. Tragically, the wealthy communal leaders would hire gentiles to kidnap the poor Jewish children, lock them up in the synagogue, and keep them to be turned over to the Czarists.
The lack of ahavat Yisrael cried out to the heavens!!! Was this "RELIGION"??? Was this a saintly Jewish community that was cruelly and unjustly slaughtered by G-d?
The lack of unity and love was epitomized, too, in the incredible number of bitter arguments and splits within the Jewish community. My father, of blessed memory, told me as a child about the split between the chassidim of Sanz and Rizhin, a hatred that reached its climax with chassidim going to the Western Wall to put the Sanzer Rebbe, the great Divrei Chaim, into CHEREM! And at a Shabbat Seuda Shlishit, a chasid attempted to stab the Divrei Chaim...
Sinat Chiman ran through East European Jewry as a thread, and the classic example was the Munkatcher Rebbe declaring, concerning the Pressburg Yeshiva founded by the Chasam Sofer, "v'hivdilanu min hato'im- and He has separated us from those who err," even as the Pressburg Yeshiva refused entry to any student who was a member of Mizrachi...
And this terrible hatred was, long ago, described by the Rabbis as an unpardonable sin with a terrible, and terribly clear and precise, warning: "How severe is machloket! The Court of Heaven does not punish until one is over the age of 20, and the court on earth does so from the age of 31, but in the dispute of Korach, children of one day old were burned and swallowed up by the earth..." (Tanchuma, Korach 3). And the Rabbis in Shabbat 33b: "When there are righteous in the generation, the righteous are caught for the sins of the generation. When there are no righteous, then little children are caught for the sins of the generation." Let each of us think long and carefully about this. Let us search our souls.
And let us remember, on top of all the above-mentioned sins, the refusal to grasp the Land of Israel to our bosom. "And they despised the desirable land" (Psalms 106:24) is the Biblical condemnation of the generation of the desert and its great scholars and leaders who preferred to return to Egypt rather than go to the Land of Israel. Their actions led to the night of "weeping for generations," Tisha B'Av. What shall we say, then, about the rejection of Eretz Yisrael in the decades preceding the Holocaust by so many great religious leaders in Europe?
It is time to put an end to the nonsense of "we cannot know the reasons." That answer guarantees the turning away of Jewish youth. It is time to bury the myth of an East European Jewry that was pious and saintly. That insures the creation of a Jewish G-d who is senselessly cruel. It is time to put an end to the indictment of G-d, to blasphemy against the L-rd.
The Jewish press, 1985
Shabbat Shalom!
If you are interested in reading more divrei torah from Rabbi Meir and Binyamin Kahane HY"D, you can purchase the book at both of the following two links:
http://brennbooks.com/
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Thursday, September 14, 2017
Torah and Politics
Kahane on the Parsha
Rabbi Meir Kahane- Parshat Va'Yelech
TORAH AND "POLITICS"
The Talmud (Shabbat 138b-139a) states, "In the future the Torah will be forgotten by Israel." The prophet Amos proclaims, "They will run to seek the word of the L-rd but won't find it" (Amos 8:12). How do we reconcile these statements with the verse in our parsha that declares the Torah "will NOT be forgotten by their descendants" (Deuteronomy 31:21)?
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the Talmud (op. cit.) explains: The meaning of Amos's dire prophecy is that "a clear halacha and a clear teaching will not be found in the same place." The Torah itself, however, will never, G-d forbid, be forgotten by Israel.
The era preceding the redemption will be a tragic one. G-d will "send a famine upon the land...a famine for hearing the word of G-d" (Amos 8:11). People will seek the truth, they will want to know what to do- but no one will be able to tell them. Truth will have no address.
The Talmud (Sotah 49a) states that before the Messiah's arrival, matters will deteriorate to such a degree that people will despair and proclaim, "Upon whom, then, can we rely?" And they will answer, "Upon our Father in Heaven." On these words, the Chofetz Chaim comments: This is a terrible curse. Since there will be no great men to lead us, everyone will be forced to rely solely on G-d. In other words, fate.
Of course there will be great men of Torah in the era preceding the redemption- men proficient in Talmud and pilpul. But, "a clear halacha and a clear teaching will not be found in the same place." No "clear halacha"- no practical plan of action- will emerge from these great men who know the Torah's "clear teachings." In other words, no one will take the Torah concepts of faith and trust and apply them to real life. No one will demand, for example, that we rely on G-d and not pay attention to what the non-Jewish nations have to say about our future in Eretz Yisrael. "Teachings" and "halacha" will operate in separate spheres. Faith and trust in G-d will remain theoretical concepts while security and sovereignty over the Land of Israel will be considered "politics."
Peirush HaMaccabee
Shabbat Shalom!
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Wednesday, September 13, 2017
ELUL 1977
From Barbara Ginsberg’s Desktop
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
A Healthy, Happy, Sweet New Year to you and your family. May we never be in need of others and live in Eretz Yisrael in Shalom. Please Hashem let our enemies be driven out of our Holy Land. Let us go up to pray on our Holy Temple Mount which will be in Jewish control May all Jews live together in peace.
Barbara and Chaim
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 Supremest 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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Monday, September 4, 2017
The Holocaust 1989
“Beyond
Words” is a newly-published seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s
writings from 1960 – 1990 that
originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his
privately-published works.
“Beyond Words” also includes a number of extra features:
Chronology of Rabbi Kahane's life.
“Beyond Words” now can be bought at Amazon.com. On the search line, type… Beyond Words Kahane.
Beyond Words
Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,
1960-1990
Volume 6
THE HOLOCAUST
Written, May 1989
How the Jewish leadership of our times, and Jews in general have
made the Holocaust a religion unto itself, and the raison d’etre of
Jewishness! Worse, how the Jews revel in
attacking and condemning “the world” for its silence and apathy and refusal to
act to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The Vatican, the British, the United States, the Christian world – all
are the subject of almost delirious Jewish vituperation. “They” stood by and watched Jews die . . .
And yet what a waste and worse.
What a waste, because did anyone expect anything more from the Christian
world? If Christians do not do for
Christians in Lebanon who are massacred by Moslems, are we shocked and angered
that they did nothing for Jews? Who are
we condemning? Those from whom we never
could have expected action? Did we
really expect them to help Jews? Or the
real culprits, the ones from whom we had every right to expect outrage and
anger and action and sacrifice on behalf of the Jews threatened with Holocaust
– the Jews of the free world!
They, the Jewish Establishment leaders of the free world, who knew
as early as 1942 of the extermination and who did nothing, are the real culprits are the real
culprits, the silent partners in the Holocaust.
The Jewish organizations – B’nai B’rith, American Jewish Committee,
American Jewish Congress, all the rest; the Jewish Federations, the
national and local Jewish leaders, the Reform and Conservative temple rabbis –
all those, who twenty years later were marching and protesting and being
arrested for blacks and civil rights and lettuce and grapes and Vietnam. All
those who were nowhere to be seen or heard when the issue was not human rights
but JEWISH LIVES, 12,000 Jewish lives, Jews who were murdered daily. All
those who marched in Jackson, Mississippi, and who broke the law in Selma,
Alabama, but never blocked the streets of Washington to shout: “Bomb
Auschwitz!”
For make no mistake – there was a way to have saved hundreds of
thousands of Jews. The Jews who were
exterminated in the camps did not arrive there, as if by magic. They had to be transported from all over Europe,
by railroad. And the Jews trapped in
Hitler’s Europe pleaded with the Jewish leaders of the free world: Bomb the
railroad lines and the bridges over which the freight trains ride! If you cripple them for a day, you can save
thousands; for a week, you can save tens of thousands! Shake the world! Shake the world!
The Jewish Establishment shook nothing. They were obscenely fearful of demonstrating
and breaking the law and shaking the world, for they feared anti-Semitism
that would affect them. Had the
Jewish leaders and Jewish organizations led 100,000 Jews to the White
House and sat on the streets blocking traffic, they would have been arrested,
and world headlines would have cried out the next day: “Jews arrested, demand bombing of death
camps!” And they would have been
bombed. But the Jewish leaders did
nothing of the kind. They feared that this would lead to “anti-Semitism” that
would threaten them. The Jewish Establishment. The Jewish leaders. They are the ultimate culprits, the criminals
of silence. They were the ones who
should have, more than any gentile, shaken the world, and they did not. The scarlet letter, the mark of Cain, will
never leave them these are our leaders . . .
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
Facebook Links:
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Barbara Ginsberg – Do search
To view articles written by Rabbi Meir Kahane and Rabbi Binyamin Kahane
go to blog:
To view Rabbi Meir Kahane site of Youtubes, Videos. CDs posted by
Michael Miller go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/bayitvegan
Facebook Links:
Michael ben-Ari- Jewish Strength:
Barbara Ginsberg – Do search
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