A Symbol Of Trust

Rabbi Meir Kahane

Parshat VaYikra

A SYMBOL OF TRUST

"And a soul who brings a minchah sacrifice to G-d..." (Leviticus 2:1). On this verse, the Rabbis ask, "Why does the Torah alter its language and use the word 'soul' [instead of 'man']? G-d said, 'Who ordinarily brings a minchah? A poor person. When he brings a minchah, I consider it as if he offered his soul to Me'" (Menachot 104b).

The minchah sacrifice, brought by a poor person, symbolizes dedication and subjugation. That's why it cannot contain chametz (Leviticus 2:11) since chametz symbolizes arrogance.

The minchah, though, also symbolizes faith that G-d will give man what he lacks. That's why the Rabbis called the afternoon prayer - recited when the sun is setting and the world begins to grow dark - Tefillat Minchah. Precisely when the situation appears dark and likely to darken further, a person must have faith and pray - and if he does, G-d will help. That's why the Rabbis declared that "a person should always be careful to pray Minchah because the prophet Elijah doesn't answer any prayer save this one" (Berachot 6b).

Incidentally, this understanding of the words "soul" and "minchah" explains why G-d exiled Jacob and his progeny to Egypt. For when Jacob heard that his brother Esau was coming to kill him, he sent him a present - a minchah (Genesis 32:13). In other words, instead of relying on G-d and placing his faith in Him, Jacob placed his faith in the goodwill of Esau. He took the Minchah - which symbolizes faith in G-d - and sent it to Esau.

The Torah alludes to this sin when it refers to the descent of Jacob and his progeny to Egypt as the descent of 70 "souls" (Exodus 1:5). "Soul" ordinarily symbolizes someone who has complete faith, someone who brings a minchah sacrifice. Since Jacob did not exhibit complete faith, he and his family were sent into exile in Egypt, and the Torah reminds us of his sin by using the word "soul" in this context.

Peirush HaMaccabee

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Otzma Yisrael for Anglos

The Only Hope - The National Referendum

 “K A H A N E”

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea

Nissan -5737   April-1977

THE ONLY HOPE - THE NATIONAL REFERENDUM

 (Excerpts)

The election of a national emergency government for four full years, consisting of one party (rather than the impossible coalition of today) that will be obliged and have full power to implement the following program:

A)   Putting an end to the Arab uprising with all means that the army

deems necessary.  This will include automatic and compulsory expulsions of law-violators and their families, the free use of weapons against stone-throwers and other attackers of Israelis, as well as permission for Jewish civilians traveling in the territories and under attack, to use their weapons freely in the same manner as soldiers.

B)   The annexation of the liberated areas (Judea, Samaria, Gaza) by

 incorporating them into the State of Israel.  Full Jewish sovereignty over the land of Israel, including the Temple Mount, and free Jewish settlement throughout the land.

C)   Offering both the Arabs of the territories and those within the

pre-1967 Israel the choice of: 1) remaining in the land with full individual rights (cultural, social, religious, economic) but no national ones (they will not be citizens, will not vote, nor sit in the Knesset) as they recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, 2) leaving the country willingly with compensation for property or, 3) refusing both of the above and being removed from the land.

D)   Dismantling the country’s present bureaucratic, government-

bobbled economy and introducing a free economy with private initiative, incentives to investors, and freedom from obsessive regulation and red tape.  The opportunity to make Israel an economic super-power lies down the road of free enterprise.

E)   A total overhaul of the country’s educational system to put an end

 to the disastrous ideological bankruptcy of the young Israeli who has little if any knowledge and emotional links with Zionism, Judaism, or Jewishness.  A curriculum that will include large doses of Jewish values and Jewish sources as well as Jewish national pride and Zionism, taught by ideologically competent teachers.

F)    The creation of a new state television and radio authority with

 positive values toward Judaism and Jewish nationalism.  An end to the deliberate distortions of the news and the undermining of national morale and values.

G)   The compulsory learning by every Jewish youngster of a manual

trade so as to recreate the Jewish worker that was the dream of Zionism and is the basis of any normal national economy and state. 

 At the end of four years, another referendum will be held to see if the people agree that the aims of the national emergency government have been achieved or if another four years will be needed.

The referendum will declare and mandate that, if approved the Knesset will be dissolved and a free election held within 30 days to elect one party with full and absolute powers and obligations to implement the program mandated by the referendum.  Any party or list will be eligible to run and be elected on condition that it pledge to full accept and fully implement the above program.

This will be the reply to the enemies of Israel who dream of its destruction.  This will be the reply to those within the State whose policies would destroy the Jewish body and eliminate the Jewish soul.

As World War II struck Great Britain with all the frightening implications of defeat, British democracy froze the democratic political system, suspended elections and major political rights.  It did so because Great Britain faced a threat to all that was dear to it.  How much more should Israel, faced with a threat to its very existence, not shrink from this.

And one can fairly taste the reaction of the demagogues of democracy to the above. On every high hill and under every leafy tree the declaimers of democracy cry out in well-rehearsed fury: This is a threat to democracy!

Ah, how shrill the squeal of the stuck, the bowl of the hypocrites of political history. They bemoan the threat to democracy. They warn against the treat to democracy.  The democracy that does not exist and that never really did in the state of heartbreak.  Israel.

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Otzma Yehudit for Anglos

The Practical, The Rational 1988

“K A H A N E”

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea

July-August 1988            Tamuz-Menachem Av 5748         

The Practical, The Rational

(This was written in 1988 and reads as if it was written this very moment. bg)

Breathes there a Jew with mind so dead who never has proclaimed allegiance to rationality, pragmatism and the joys of being practical?  To be a person who speaks of “faith” and “ belief” is clearly to have one foot in the camp of the Ayatollah and no normal Jew would ever dare be brushed with the tar of “fanatic!”  No, the Jewish people is a “normal” people, a rational one, and thank G-d that the normal people is also the most abysmally ignorant of its own Judaism and teachings – otherwise it would surely burn all the Bibles and Talmuds that babble about “cursed is he who trusteh in man.”

And so it follows that trusting in G-d is a quaint thing, to be jollied over at the Jewish Museum and in lecture series, but only an extremist would take it to the light of modern day.  This is a practical world, one in which tough and pragmatic men understand the real realities and make their plans accordingly.  Prayers are wonderful for the holidays and with which to open conventions but let them attempt to escape to the streets to demand equal time and to be taken seriously, and we shoot them down as dangerous fanaticism.

That is why the sophisticates from Peres to the AJC, from Moment to Olam HaZeh reject the past as key to the future and indeed, hallow only the moment, the “zeh”.  We believe only in the things we can see and touch and feel and understand.  Only the logical and rational play any part in our equations; guns, allies, realpolitik, those are the things and stuff of which the real is made of.

And that is why we dare not annex the “occupied territories” (Judea-Samaria-Gaza); and that is why we dare not even talk of removing the Arabs from the Temple Mount; and that is why only madmen should think of expelling or “transferring” the Arabs; and that is why we dare not ever anger the Americans without whom we would be in the sea.

Very well, I am convinced.  Secular logic is, after all, so compelling.  I have decided to convert.  I have decided to accept the religion of pragmatism.  You now behold, before you, a superb example of rationality and practicality.  But to the bitter end. And here, fellow pragmatists and healthy rationalists is the bitter end.

Of course this religious dependence on G-d is absurd.  Of course the reality is weapon and the United States and allies and good will.  Because it is only this that will stand us in good stead when the Arabs produce or receive their first nuclear weapon or decide to use the chemical-biological weapons that are today’s “poor man’s” nuclear arsenal.

Pakistan is on the verge of producing (and may, indeed, have already produced) its own nuclear weapon.  It does not take very much to produce a “primitive”, outdated, atomic bomb which is limited in scope, say like the one dropped on Hiroshima… And if Moslem Pakistan develops such a weapon does one believe that its devoted faithful will not share it with their oppressed Arab Moslems and Palestinians?  By all means let us be hard headed and come up with a rational answer to that.  Without the nonsense of faith.

And when the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Engineers, General Yoseph Ayal tells us (August 17) that certain Arab states are developing the capacity for chemical and biological warfare, there is no doubt that our practical senses will handle the matter with equanimity and without interference from G-d and his faithful.  My only problem is that in all my pious rationality I really do not know how to deal with the above.  Practicality somehow fails to give me answers as to how to deal with Arab nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the hands of fanatical Moslems.

And bringing back tongue from cheek, the bitter reality is that the realists have nothing but bitter reality and not the slightest answer to the pragmatic and practical problems that defy rational solutions.  The reality is that Israel faces such awesome practical threats just over the horizon that a normal, practical, rational Jew, would be insane to stay if he could, somehow, leave the country.  It is only the “impractical”, the “irrational”, and the “dreamers” who have any rational reason to remain.  They believe in G-d.  They have faith in an Almighty and a Torah that decreed there never can be a third exile.  They know that perfect faith and trust in G-d, while observing His commandments, will assure victory over our enemies.  That is why they stay. That is why they are undeterred by the certainty of Arab nuclear and chemical and biological weapons.  Because they pray.  Because they do not miss a mincha – and evening service – or any other kind.  Because they do know that “these may come with nuclear bombs and these with chemical warfare, but we shall proclaim the name of the L-rd.” 

A rational Jew?  That is a rational Jew.  Any other kind, the one who decides to trust in Ronald Reagan is mad, fanatic, extreme, a real Khoumeniite.

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Otzma Yisrael for Anglos

AIPAC AND OTHER FRIENDS OF ISRAEL - 1982

 “Beyond Words” is a 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

1981-1985

Volume 4

AIPAC AND OTHER FRIENDS OF ISRAEL
For years we have been told by donkeys of various leadership levels that the fate of Israel is dependent in great measure on Jewish groups and support in the United States. And the name of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) always led all the rest. For this was the mysterious, powerful (all-powerful?) Israel lobby that both anti-Semites and Jews spoke of in terms of supernatural powers. Who can tell the wonders of AIPAC? It controlled Congress (and let us overlook a few minor defeats such as F-15 planes and AWACs to Arabis). It helped determine U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Indeed, it was one of the basic reasons against Jewish aliyah, for if AIPAC and friends went to Israel, who would be here to save the Jewish state…?

And then Tom Dine and AIPAC announced that they supported Reagan over Begin – and in the name of good Israel-American relations. And AIPAC walked in the path of not a few other major Jewish organizations. And the Israel lobby was suddenly no longer the comfortable salon it had always been.

Let the donkeys learn two lessons from this.

One: Israel has no need of “lobbies,” but of a home. Jews in the United States will not save Israel. Jews who do G-d’s will and leave the accursed Exile, will.

Two: The lobbies have lost their alleged strength and they, themselves, know it. A strong President can blow away the Israel lobby and its corridors. The American people and Congress are turning on Israel, and the impotency of AIPAC and all the other illusions will be clearly seen.

Three: They themselves know it, and that is why they not only shrink from battle but leap to support the programs that are disastrous for Israel. Its fear of anti-Semitism growing out of a conflict between Israel and America is greater than its support for Israel. Because of this, it will move to pressure Israel to be more “moderate” and “flexible.” It will pretend to love Israel to the death and only oppose Begin. But the truth is, it lives in horror of anti-Semitism and will sacrifice Israel to try and avert it. Let AIPAC and all the others become Jewish.
Leave the lobby and enter the Jewish home, Israel. STOP EATING WITH THE GENTILES, TOM DINE, AND INSTEAD EAT WITH YOUR FELLOW JEWS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL!!!
October 1st, 1982

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Anglos for Israel