But It Is MY Ox!!! 1990

RABBI MEIR KAHANE ON JEWS AND JUDIASM But It Is MY Ox!   January 19, 1990   -  22 Teveth 5750 [ I ask “why does President Trump not want to allow Muslims refugees from Muslim countries enter America?  He wants strong vetting of all that enter.    Of course, I agree with him, as he wants to stop all terrorist attacks and terrorists will come in with the refugees.  So, I ask, why not allow all Muslims in and try to bring peace with the terrorists by “peace talks”, giving them their own towns, cities and more as Israel has foolishly done and now Pres. Trump asks Israel to give them a Palestinian state.  The answer:  America is President Trump’s OX!    Israel is not Trump’s OX! bg] Once upon a time, there was a man who owned several beautiful oxen.  They were strong and well-mannered and just a delight.  He had a neighbor, however, who was a bad man and very jealous of the beautiful oxen, because the bad man’s oxen were ugly and ill-tempered.  And the jealousy of the bad man gave him no rest, so that one day he deliberately let his ill-tempered oxen into the field where the beautiful oxen were grazing and they gored one of them, killing it.  The owner of the dead ox was angry at this terrible and deliberate outrage that, in the middle of the night, he entered the field where the ill-tempered oxen were and killed one of them. The neighboring villagers and cattle people were very moral and ethical people and they were aghast at the man who had taken revenge on the ill-tempered ox and its bad owner.  Their leader, Mr. Morality, was especially indignant.  “What you did was very immoral,” he told the poor man.  “You cannot sink to his level.  And you cannot enter someone else’s field even if there is a dangerous ox there.  You cannot take the law into your own hands.” In vain did the poor fellow protest that someone had to teach the bad fellow a lesson and that unless that were done, he would do it again.  Nothing helped.  Mr. Morality was adamantly ethical: “You do not take the law into your own hands; you do not enter other people’s property; you do not sink to his level.”  And with that, Mr. Morality and his merry band of ethical cattlemen walked off, heads high and breasts filled with a sweet sense of righteousness. The poor man was so beaten that he could not bear the thought of continuing as before.  He was so depressed that he decided to sell the rest of his beautiful oxen to anyone who would buy them. To be sure, there was no lack of buyers and, in the end; it was Mr. Morality himself who offered the highest price.  Beaming, he took possession of the beautiful, quiet, well-mannered and delightful oxen.           But the change in ownership had not changed the way the bad man felt.  Every time he would see the beautiful oxen, he was blinded by jealousy and envy.  And so, one night, when he could no longer contain his jealousy, he sent his ugly and ill-tempered oxen into the field of Mr. Morality and they again killed one of the beautiful oxen. When Mr. Morality heard of what had happened, his anger knew no bounds.  And without a second thought, he took a number of his merry ethical friends, entered the field of the bad man and killed not one, but two of his oxen.             When the original owner of the oxen heard of this, he hurried over to Mr. Morality.  “I do not understand.  What did you do?  When I did the same thing, you told me that one does not take the law into one’s own hands; one does not enter other people’s fields and one does not sink to their level.  What happened now?”             Mr. Morality looked with pity on the poor, uncomprehending man.  “I see that you really don’t understand, poor fellow.  Let me explain.  There is a difference between your going into his field and my going into his field.  In your case, you really should not have done such a thing.  In this case, it was my ox…”             I wallow in glee over events in Panama and Romania.  O, Panama!  O, Romania! I watch as the United States troops go into someone else’s field, invade a foreign country with 25,000 troops, shoot up its capital city, kill some 70 Panamanians, and install their own government.             And then I remember Israel’s invasion of Lebanon after years of attacks on Jewish towns from that country; after scores of Jews were murdered by attacks launched from that land; after life was made a living hell for the Jews of Kiryat Shmona, one third of whom fled the city.  And I remember Israeli troops reaching Beirut and installing their Lebanese as President in order to put an end to murder and attacks upon Jews.             And I remember Messrs. Morality!  ALL of them!  President Reagan, Vice-President Bush, the State Department, the Defense Department and all the merry, ethical Americans (and British and French and, and, and, ad infinitum.  Ad nauseum). How they condemned and how they railed and how they moralized and how they ethicalized!  Merrily.  “You do not sink to the level of the PLO.  You do not enter someone else’s field (land).  You do not take the law into your own hands.”  Messrs. Morality, Post Office Box One Million, Washington, DC.                  And so now there is Panama.  And should any simple-minded type ask President Morality, High-minded Bush of morality, why he did everything he told Israel it should not do – he would give a sympathetic nod to the poor simpleton who really does not understand, and the answer would be: But it is my ox…             I remember Israeli troops entering the field of Lebanon to capture a Moslem Sheikh who was leader of a group of Moslem Shiite thugs holding Israelis as hostages; and President Morality and his merry ethical State Department cattlemen with their shouts of condemnation!  And now I see the same moralists invading the field of Panama to try and catch a thug named Noriega because he deals in drugs that harm Americans and because he tweaks America’s nose.  And I finally understand the difference and can even hear President Morality say it: But it is my ox… And I remember the outcry by all the democrats and anti-racist equality types demanding that William Nakash be extradited from Israel to France and rising up in righteous indignation over the thought that just because someone is a Jew, he should not be extradited.  After all, all human beings are equal and being Jewish is no reason to refuse to hand him over to strangers.  And what would the world say to any such tribalism!  And then I read that under Panamanian, law, a Panamanian cannot be extradited to a foreign county and I understand the difference: But it is my ox… I watch as, in Romania, the dictator is captured and he and his wife are shot in secret trial, with summary justice dealt out within less than two days and no appeal allowed.  And I know that Israel did not give the death penalty to any murdering terrorists and goes through elaborate procedures of “justice” in order that terrorists sit and eat and drink at our expense until they are exchanged for hostages.  And I know what the outcry from Romania and other ethical nations would be if Israel would do to murdering terrorists what Romania did to its former President.  But I have already learned the difference; THIS IS MY OX… And having said all that, I do not – as so many professors and intellectual doers on the right – merely weep, complain and wring my soul. I have no intention of wasting a precious few moments of my finite life in the House of Eternal Kvetching, in which so many of the right-wing spend their lives.  The lesson for me in this morality lesson of Whose Ox is gored? Is not that there are hypocrites in this world. Boker Tov! Good morning!  There are hypocrites in the world!  Surprise… For me, the only lesson here is that there is, indeed, a difference.  Not the one that the moralists of hypocrisy give, but the objective and eternally true one of divine Torah Law.  There is a difference, the one that cannot be grasped unless one has knowledge and sense.  In the words of the rabbis, “Im ein da’at havdala minayin?”  “If one has no knowledge, how can he differentiate?”  The lesson is that there is objective good and objective evil, objective truth and objective falsehood, and the same action taken against the one is good while the same act done against the other is wrong and evil.  Yes, it is good and right and a mitzvah to go into Panama to eliminate the slime named Noriega and yes, how much more so was it right and a mitzvah to enter Lebanon and eliminate the PLO and other Moslem terrorist swine.  And yes, it was wrong and evil for the Russians to do exactly the same in Afghanistan and for the Chinese to invade Tibet.  Yes, the German bombing of Coventry and London is not the same as the Allied bombing of German cities and yes, the hanging of evil criminals is good and that of decent people, bad, and anyone who does not understand this havdala, differentiation, needs a good grounding in knowledge.  Divine knowledge.  Torah knowledge. Until then, at the very least, let the Jew learn the simple message of normal gentiles who – when their basic interests are threatened – do not hesitate to enter strange fields and to kill evil oxen.  It is time the Jew learned there is nothing for which to apologize or retreat when his people are killed and his interest threatened.  It is time that he learned to tell President Morality and any other merry ethical type:  “But it is my ox and no one touches it; understand?” 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 and Rabbi Binyamin Kahane go to blog: www.barbaraginsberg-kahane.blogspot.com FACEBOOK Barbara Sandra Ginsberg Anglos for Otzma Yehudit ReplyForward

There Are No Moderates - 1989

K A H A N E
The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
May-June 1989 Iyar-Sivan 5749

Israel – There Are No Moderates (excerpts)

“Moderates.” “Moderates.” There are no Arab moderates. There are only clever Arabs and stupid ones. The stupid ones say exactly what they mean: eliminate Israel. The clever ones (and more and more are becoming so) mean exactly the same thing but they are clever. After defeats in four wars and numerous clashes they have learned the secret: “say nice, moderate things to guilt-ridden Jews, and they will love you. They will throw money at you. And the Sinai. And hopefully, the “occupied lands”…

There are no Arab moderates. And one salutes in awe the ability of Arafat [today it is Abbas} the arch-murderer, to persuade the Jews of lemmingism of his “change of heart,” of his “moderation.” He must surely be a candidate for the Nobel Prize for not laughing, for not rolling on the floor in hysteria.

He has renounced “terrorism?” Of course, but he firmly maintains that to attack the Zionists who “occupy his country” is not terrorism, but rather a war of national liberation. He accepts UN resolutions 242 and 338? To be sure, but within the context of all the UN resolutions on “Palestine,” including resolution 181, the one that the “poor Palestinians” rejected in 1947, the one that originally established a Jewish State. Today, Arafat accepts it. He is good. Having been humiliated militarily he accepts it, knowing that it would bring the Jews back to the boundaries of 1947. He accepts all the UN resolutions, including the ones calling for Israel to allow the “refugees” to return to their homes in Israel if they desire to. All the “refugees” who were part of the “poor Palestinians” who attempted to wipe out Israel in 1948. Today, thanks to the 40 years of birth, there are more than two million of them.

He has recognized the existence of Israel. True. Much in the same way that we all recognize the existence of earthquakes, disease and roaches. Of course we recognize them, because they exist. We recognize their existence in order to put an end to their existence. So too with Arafat. He recognizes Israeli existence…

Arafat; the PLO; the “Palestinians:” the Arab states. Models of deceit and deception, paragons of duplicity and perfidy. Hands of blood and tongues of pretense. They plan new a Holocaust as they speak peace.

No, there are no Arab “moderates.” They are liars who cannot live together with themselves, let alone Israel. They all believe that the Jewish State of Israel is a bandit, settler state, that has stolen “Palestine” from them. And because of that, and with deep sadness, one knows that there will be no peace. And let none of the comfortable denizens of Peace Now in Beverly Hills or the woodpeckers of Hollywood or the pompous pulpiteers of Reform liberal temples screech in indignation. Kahane does not want peace! Kahane does not want peace? Where do I live and where do they live? I, who live in Israel and serve in its army and whose children serve in the army, desire peace a great deal more than the shallow liberals and leftists of Peace Now and those paragons of Reform shallowness, Alexander Schindler and Balfour Brickner, who regularly trumpet declarations of suicide through Peace.

There will be no peace because the “poor Palestinians” do not wish peace. They wish “Palestine”. All of it. And that includes Israel. So let us not delude ourselves and let us not believe in delusions. The great Rebbe of Kutzk once said: “It is a sin to deceive one’s neighbor. It is a crime to deceive oneself.”

Wishing peace, yearning for peace does not mandate committing suicide for peace. And for all those who cry that Israel has been fighting for 40 years, let it be stated flatly that the Jewish people have been fighting for 4,000 years and had our forefathers been as depressed as some of their present day children, we would have been long since gone as a people.

Cease the weeping and wailing! We have a state of our own and it can be a glorious one and let us give thanks to the Almighty for it. And let us understand clearly that a state is not given on a silver platter; neither is it won by writing a check. A state is a precious thing that is won by sacrifice and blood, and if there are those who are not prepared for this, let them walk away and leave it to those who are – unafraid, who have both faith in G-d and the willingness to climb the ramparts in battle.

We are weary? We are weary of having to serve in the army each year to defend our state? How much would a Jew in Auschwitz have given for the opportunity to see a Jewish army, a Jewish tank, a Jewish plane – and with what joy he would have agreed to serve each year in a Jewish army of a Jewish State, created so as to help guarantee that never again will there be an Auschwitz for its Jewish citizens!

Peace? Of course we want peace. Who does not want peace? It is not the monopoly of the guilt-ridden and self-hating hypocrites, the artists and intellectuals (sic) of the left. We all wish peace; we all fervently pray for peace. We all look for the day when the nations shall beat their swords into ploughshares. But, meanwhile, as they continue to have swords with which to destroy us, let us not be so mad as to wave ploughshares.

Give up land. For “peace” that the “poor Palestinian” is prepared to grant us? The ultimate peace of the dead? Are we mad? The ones who launched four wars of aggression against Israel and lost for wars of aggression, dictate terms to us? The ones who launched four wars of aggression and a thousand terrorist attacks, who slew thousands of Jews, and who lost – now present us with demands? They insist that we, who won, give up land? Let the Arab aggressors and murderers learn a very basic rule of life: Losers lose. Winners win. Losers and especially losers who launched wars of murderous aggression, do not dictate terms. Aggression is not a game in which one attempts to wipe out innocent people, loses and then returns to “Go”. No, aggression is a gamble and if the aggressor loses – let him know the full bitterness of his reality – that he has lost. Then, perhaps, he will think deeply and carefully before embarking on another adventure. For let the “poor Palestinian” know in every fiber of his body, that he had best leave well enough alone. Let him accept a peace that will see him establish a state of his own in Jordan, if he can do it. For should he be so foolish as to begin another murderous war of aggression, let him be certain that that which he still possess in Jordan will be ours too.

Land for peace? By all means. The Jews who were the victims of countless efforts to destroy them and who are the rightful owners, will keep the land and be prepared to graciously give the murderous Arabs, peace.

And above all, no guilt! What causes a Jewish people that has suffered thousands of dead and tens of thousands of wounded and maimed at the hands of the Arabs, fail to understand that they are a cruel and implacable enemy, bent on destroying Israel and decimating the Jews? What causes Jews who see the brutality and treachery and viciousness with which Arabs massacre each other, refuse to see what our fate would be if we would be so mad as to give them the slightest opportunity to do to us what they dream to do to us? Above all, what makes a Jewish people that has only one land and has returned to that land, to feel guilty over it and to accept the myth of a “Palestine” and a “Palestinian people?”

There is no Palestinian people and there is no Palestine! There is not, there never was, and please G-d there will never be. 

Shabbat Shalom

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Itamar ben-Gvir words at the Press Conference 1/20/2020

Itamar Ben Gvir: They offered me the role of ambassador, but I'm not looking for jobs - but ideology
After reports in recent days of various offers to Itamar Ben Gvir to get him to remove his list, Otzma Yehudit, Ben Gvir announced tonight (Monday) at a press conference that they reject all of the offers.
In Ben Gvir's words, "It's no secret that in recent days various members of the coalition made me many offers that would have settled down Itamar Ben Gvir for many years to come.
"I understand that around the Prime Minister, they denied the news item about the offer of a ministerial position, but the truth is that they know very well who the important and the different figures in the coalition are who came to me tens of times in recent days and spoke at length with me. What have they NOT offered me? To be a minister in the Israeli government under one of the Charedi parties, jobs in the Jewish National Fund, the World Zionist Histadrut, respectable jobs in the Bar Association, responsibility for access to the Cave of the Patriarchs, even the job of ambassador, they offered me - what all these jobs have in common, that they are all great, respectable positions - there's a seat, a job - but one thing there is not: There is no path to follow, no ideology! No concern for the country! A word is NOT a word, a promise is NOT a promise. What others see from there, we can't see here", added Ben Gvir.
He also added that "no one offered or will offer to cancel the protection for Hamas, to cancel the arrangements in Gaza, to disqualify the whole United Arab list, no one offered or will offer to annex all areas of the Land of Israel, to stop evacuating the outposts, to be concerned for the Jewish identity of the State, to see that there is education for our Jewish heritage, to strengthen the 'Who is a Jew' law, to lower taxes, to take care of the weak and taxi drivers and divorced fathers - all this was not on the agenda. Only jobs and to lower the minimum threshold percent, which is nice, but not for that have I been working since age 14...."
Ben Gvir also added at the press conference: "They speak of a right bloc, a right bloc, but in fact, nobody wants us! They want to use and discard, they want the votes but we are second- class, from their point of view.
"Friends, the Religious Zionist elite have not only disqualified Itamar Ben Gvir. They disqualified 84,000 voters who don't exactly look like them. Otzma Yehudit does not represent a small, snobbish Beit Midrash within Religious Zionism, but a huge public, with large and small kippot, secular and traditional, development towns, working Charedim. From their point of view, anyone who isn't like them is rejected.
"True, I'm not a pilot, my father is not a rabbi, and I wasn't born into a noble settlement family, but we are not second-class, and one thing you know for sure about us in Otzma Yehudit: Our word is our word. Tonight, I'm honored to inform you in the name of the Otzma Yehudit Secretariat, that we are running till the end, for values, for truth, for the country, for the Jewish People and for all of our children!", Ben Gvir concluded.

The Chosen Land 1974

OUR CHALLENGE

THE CHOSEN LAND (Excerpts)

Written 1974

It is time for the Jew in Israel to throw away those negative attitudes that he retains from the Galut, the Exile.  Chief among these is an unwillingness to look at bitter reality.  We may not enjoy hearing it, but the truth is that for many years at least there will not be sincere de jure peace with the Arabs.  It may affect the tender souls of the more spiritually intellectual among us, but one can never attain either peace or security by “compromise” with bitter enemies who have no intentions of compromising with you.  Those in Judea, Samaria and Gaza who do sit down with you because they have no choice, do so only in the hope of getting rid of you as soon as possible.  Our enemy, in the long run, is weariness.  It is against this enemy that we must struggle.  We must grid ourselves with tenacity and determination never to tire of what appears to be a never-ending struggle.  For that is what it might very well become: a struggle for Jewish existence and a Jewish state that will never cease to be a struggle; a realization that between us and the Arabs stands a massive barrier that may never be reached; a determination by two peoples to live in a land that at least one will never compromise on.  There will grow the weariness of having to send our children to the army without stop.  There will grow the weariness of having to leave each year for reserve duty.  There will grow the weariness of terrorist attacks on the borders or at the Lod airport or at the Tel-Aviv bus terminal.  There will, perhaps, again grow the weariness – and the heartbreak – of victims of a new war of attribution.  There will grow the weariness of all this, rising to a crescendo with the frustrating cry:  “When will it finally end?”

Only the weak succumb to such frustrations; only the weak surrender to time.  A strong and tenacious people know that there may never be an end to the struggle and the sacrifice.  But they also look about them and see what their refusal to surrender has accomplished: a state, and today a big one, in much of our Eretz Yisroel; a Jewish state with nearly three million souls [now 6 million]  and many more to come; the creation of a new and proud Jew.  None of these things would have come about had we listened to the intellectual precursors of our modern-day intellectuals and doves.  In the name of “peace” there would be no Jewish state; in the name of “morality” there would be no free Jewish nation.

If we hope to survive in the literal sense of the word, let us not succumb to the siren call of easy answers and the tempting promise of “peace.”  Above all, let us, please, have no illusions.  The Arabs intend to wipe us out; we must be strong enough to stop them.  The Arabs who live with us in Eretz Yisroel, both those who have done so for twenty-five years and those for just five, do not love us and never will – and one cannot blame them.  Let us not play games with them or with ourselves.  We give them civil rights and political freedom, but what Jew will ever agree that they should become a majority?  What Jew will ever agree to allow Arabs to come in on the same terms as Jews do today under the Law of Return?  Israel was formed as a Jewish state.  Arabs may have social, economic, and much political equality but, in the end, it is not their state.  For the individual Arab we offer much, but for the Arab nation, Israel offers nothing.  It is not an Arab state, it is a Jewish state.  It came into being because Jews knew that for them there was no hope in a world that thirsted for their bodies and souls.  It came into being under the realization that neither king nor Republican nor Marxist had the solution to the Jewish problem.  That in the end it was the words of the rabbis that proved to be eternally true: “It is a law, it is known that Esau hates Jacob.”

And so, Eretz Yisroel, the land of the Jewish people, exists.  It can never be anything but that and both we and the Arabs know it.  Such a fact allows for few illusions over peace.  Perhaps peace will come some day; I for one, doubt it.  Until it doesn’t let us not listen to the delusions that float down to us daily from the ivory tower or from the self-hating Left.

 Strength and tenacity – they and they alone assure Jewish survival. 

VOTE - OTZMA YEHUDIT (JEWISH STRENGTH/POWER)

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Are You Listening Jew?

Beyond Words

Selected Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane,

1960-1990

Volume 6

“Beyond Words” published seven volume collection of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings that originally appeared in The Jewish Press, other serial publications, and his privately-published works.

 “Beyond Words” is sold at Amazon.com   

Are You Listening, Jew?

(So appropriate for what is happening to Jews today)bg

Rabbi Ya’akov Emden (Yavetz) was one of the great halachic authorities of his time.  He lived in Hamburg at a time when – despite general belief – the Jews were already beginning to acclimate to society and live comfortably.  And in the introduction (Sulam Beit El) to his famous siddur (Prayer Book), he wrote the following remarkable words – a cry to the Jew in the Exile:

              Not one in a thousand arouses himself to dwell in the Land (of Israel), to live there.

              Only one from a town and two from a family.  No one seeks its love, desires its peace

              and good and waits to see it.  It appears to us as we sit in comfort in the Exile that we

have already discovered another Land of Israel and another Jerusalem.  And that is why there came upon us all the evils when we sat in Spain and other lands in comfort and great honor since the time of the Destruction … until we were later driven from there and not a trace was left of Jews in those countries.

And he concludes with words that shake the firmaments of the Jewish world:

              How long will you sleep, O lazy one, in the bed of laziness … until the foundations of

the universe shall be uncovered!  And why shall you not acquire for yourself wise counsel to flee for your life while you yet may?

Stunning, powerful, awesome words from a halachic giant, Rabbi Ya’akov Emden!  And the Jew hears nothing.  And why should we be surprised?  Why should we be astonished that the Jew fails to hear the words that echo from the eighteenth century, from Hamburg, German, when he cannot hear the cry of Bensonhurst?

I arrived in the United States for two weeks in time to see and hear the awesome cry of Rabbi Ya’ akov Emden – this time from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.  And I look about me at the Jew who apparently is blind to what is so obvious; so deaf to the screeching sounds about him, and so dumb – both in inability to express the reality and to understand it.

In the cold-blooded murder of a black youth in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, lies the reality of America, and the impossible dilemma for the Jews of that country who, like those of so many generations of Exile past, thought, in the words of Rabbi Ya’akov Emden, that “they had discovered another Land of Israel and another Jerusalem.”

Bensonhurst lies in White America, attacked to Boro Park – land of Jewish certainty and assurance that herein lies yet another Eretz Yisrael and Jerusalem.  Bensonhurst is an almost all-white enclave that, incredibly, brings comfort and security to the Jews who live there or who border on it.  And in Bensonhurst a young man was gunned down because he was black – and the Jew heard nothing and understood nothing and felt not the slightest alarm.  Indeed, G-d help us, there were not a few who agreed with the white gentiles that blacks who come into the neighborhood risk receiving what the murdered black man got.

Does no one see?  Does not the Jew understand what the lesson of Bensonhurst is?  Does not one look at the faces and souls of the Bensonhurst whites who stood jeering and taunting blacks and shouting “niggers,” and understand that the bells toll for him?  Is there not a Jew who saw the hate and venom and willingness to murder, and understood that those same faces and same haters and same people could, tomorrow, just as easily and willingly do the same to the Jew?  Does the Jew not understand what he is hearing?  Is the Jew listening?  Does he want to listen?  Does he want to understand that haters are not capable of being limited in their hatred to one particular people that is different?  That those who hate blacks hate Jews, too, and perhaps even more?  That hatred is a disease that enters the marrow of the bones and emerges in all its horrors whenever social or economic or psychological conditions drive it out into action?

What is it about the Jew that fails to make him understand that the hater, the bigot, the murderer of the black man today will be the destroyer of the Jew, tomorrow?

There is a host on a large New York City radio station.  He is immensely popular with Jews, especially those of Brooklyn.  He is a bigot and a hater – albeit a clever one.  And how the Jews love it when he, in his viciousness, goes up against a “shwartzer.”

And I remember once, driving in an automobile and listening to the man as an Hispanic caller phoned in.  How the radio host-bigot ridiculed the man’s accent!  How he humiliated the man because of that accent that was different from the “American” one.  And the very next caller fairly fell over himself in delight and congratulations to the host for how he handled the foreigner.  The caller who was so delighted was from Brooklyn and had a Hungarian accent thick enough to serve with goulash under the light of his chandelier and the happy smiles of his wife under her sheitel

It is more than blind and needless hate that I cry out against.  It is the fact that the Jew hears the haters of Bensonhurst crying out their bigotry and does not hear the unspoken word, “Jew!”  For those thugs and gross hooligans and ignoramuses hate Jews with more passion than they do blacks.  For what they really feel about blacks is fear, but they hate Jews.  They are jealous of them and envious, and no greater hate emerges than from that .  What did Solomon say: “Wrath is cruel and anger is overwhelming, but who is able to stand before jealousy?” (Proverbs 27:4).

The same ones who murder blacks, and hate and fear them and curse them and  “make the neighborhood safe,” are those who sit in their bars muttering about Jews in frightening envy and jealousy that breeds the most awesome hatred of them all.  They are a danger to the very survival of Jews and G-d help us all should there be an economic collapse that will drive them into unemployment and desperation and loosen the social chains that bind them.

And that is the dilemma.  For the black community is one that is riddled with Jew-hatred.  Real hard-core hatred of Jews.  And much more open and much more “legitimate” than the kind that is endemic to whites.  Not only is a Jesse Jackson capable of making outrageous anti-Jewish comments and yet remain a legitimate national figure and candidate for the Presidency, but on every campus in American the local black student group can issue openly anti-Jewish statements and not be condemned, let alone lose its college funding.  Black papers and radio

stations can spew forth anti-Jewish hate, and the FCC and political leaders are strangely silent.  The fact is that, despite the obscene refusal of Jewish liberals to condemn black Jew-hatred but rather to rationalize it away, blacks in great measure and in huge numbers hate Jews.

And that despair grips a Jew from Israel as he sees, on the one hand, the mindless, ugly faces of the Bensonhurst whites with their Jew-hatred barely beneath the surface, while at the funeral of the black youth, Farrakhan and his black-faced brownshirts arrived.  The fact that they allowed the black Nazi Farrakhan to speak, and not one black leader protested (and naturally not a white politician dared to), underlies the despair and the hopelessness of the situation for the Jew.

On the one hand, a black community that has made anti-Semitism an integral part of its existence.  On the other, far more dangerous white majority Jew-hating class.  And that for the Jew is the real meaning of Bensonhurst and America that is riven, polarized, riddled with hate and violence that is held back only by economic prosperity.  But behind that dam lie the waters of hate and envy and jealousy.  And it is the Jew who is the target.

The Jew who saw and heard the faces and voices of Bensonhurst, the hate and violence and taunts, and who saw nothing and heard nothing.  And the voice of Rabbi Ya’akov Emden comes across the ages, crying:  Are you listening, Jew?   And the Jew does not even hear that.

Written September 1989

Editor’s note:  Jacob Emden (1697-1776), rabbi, halachic authority, kabbalist.  Emden was regarded as one of the outstanding scholars of his generation.  Despite his distinguished descent and his remarkable Talmudic attainments, Emden occupied no official position, with the exception of a few years as rabbi of Emden, Germany.  This made it possible for him to be exceptionally critical toward the society and the tradition of his time.  In addition, he published an important edition of the prayer book (whose parts had different names) with a valuable commentary (1745-48.  There were six Jews living in Emden in 1967.

(Source: Encyclopedia Judaica, 1972 edition)

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G-d's Will Comes First 1977

Kahane on the Parsha
Rabbi Meir Kahane- Parshat VaYigash

G-D'S WILL COMES FIRST

"And Joseph made ready his chariot and went up to meet Israel, his father, in Goshen...and he fell on his neck and wept" (Genesis 46:29).
"But Jacob did not fall on Joseph's neck and did not kiss him, for our Rabbis said that he was saying the Shema..." (Rashi).

Happiness is that which every man seeks. Indeed, in our times, it is happiness and the search for it- in material and physical terms- that have become the very purpose of life. Books are written about happiness and peace of mind and the masses devour them, searching for the Holy Grail in the shallowness that is fit only for McCall's or Cosmopolitan. The psychiatrists' couches groan beneath their weight; the airlines and drug peddlers both sell their trips; the race is on and non-stop, and not to the swift or the slow is the trophy awarded.
The sadness is that happiness is not the essence of life, and how much did the Rabbis know when they said: It would have been better and more pleasant for man had he not been born, but since he was, let him search his deeds. Life is a series of difficulties and sadnesses, broken by occasional rays of light that pass.

Happiness is a wonderful thing, and what a life it would be if we could abolish tears and fears, worries and tribulations. But not for this was a man made, and if he persists in making it his raison d'etre, he is guaranteed misery. Man is not an island unto himself nor is his entry into this world like some sudden underwater eruption that thrusts a piece of land into the wide ocean. His is a deliberate and planned and reasoned birth. He came into this world to do good. And that which is "good" is defined for him, not subject to the independent and anarchistic commentaries of his own mind or breed. For the Jew there is the Halacha that shapes, molds, guides, and drives him to sanctity and spiritual holiness. It is for him a guideline and a compass; it gives him ritual and gives him concepts, and DEFINES HIS EMOTIONS, TOO.

Joseph was a boy of 17 when he left his father's home. For years Jacob thought he was dead, devoured by a wild beast. For years he mourned and refused to be comforted. "Nay, for I will go down to the grave mourning for my son" (Genesis 37:35). And suddenly he hears the incredible words: "Joseph is yet alive" and- wonder of wonders- "he is ruler over all the Land of Egypt!" (ibid. 45:26). Jacob cannot believe it; the joy is too much and he finally cries out: "It is enough! My son Joseph still lives! I will go and see him before I die!" (ibid. 45:28).
And he does. He takes his family and goes down to Egypt. See the old man, the man grown aged and white from a life of sadness and tragedy. How he counts every moment; how he impatiently looks towards the south to see the first glimpse of the royal caravan! How he savors the moment when he can hold his son Joseph in his arms and kiss him! And then- at last- finally- the moment arrives, and Joseph rushes to his father's arms and embraces him and kisses him. and Jacob?

"But Jacob did not fall on Joseph's neck and did not kiss him for he was saying the Shema..."
What greatness lies in a man who can take his deepest-felt emotions and discipline them to the Halacha and say: Wait! Wait, though I burst from impatience; wait, though my every limb cries out for release. Wait: I am in the midst of accepting upon myself the yoke of heaven, of recognizing the L-rd as one, and this is why I was created. Wait, my Joseph, wait, for though I love you more than all, this is my G-d.

Let us understand what happiness and rejoicing in the Law means to a Jew. To begin with, it is a COMMANDMENT. Can one command an emotion? Can one "say", be happy, rejoice, it is commanded? Apparently yes. Apparently, the purpose of Torah is to elevate man to holiness and sanctification that he can make his very emotions and feelings cry out: "Who is like You, my G-d!" Yes, the Torah can tell a Jew who has lost a beloved one not to mourn on the Sabbath, though his heart is breaking. It can tell a Jew to stand over the open grave of a parent or a son and say the words of the Kaddish: "May His great Name be exalted and magnified..." Yes, the Torah can tell a person who seeks joy: No, not now.
There is no commandment to be sad. There is no law that declares that man must be miserable. This is not Judaism. But we are told that there is something greater than happiness and joy. It is the climb and the reaching up to holiness and sanctification, to beauty and dedication, the smashing of the ego and the greed and the selfishness and the "I." One should strive to be happy, of course. And if one can be both good and happy- how fortunate he is. But in the end, life is not a vessel for joy. It is a corridor in which one prepares his soul. Be happy with the Torah though your own soul is in agony. It is a command and, slowly, it proves to be a balm for the wounds that ache.
The Jewish Press, 1977
Shabbat Shalom!

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