When The State Refuses To Protect Its People

Barbara Ginsberg’s Desktop

Israel: Revolution or Referendum?

Parshat Achrei Mot

WHEN THE STATE REFUSES TO PROTECT ITS PEOPLE

Among the most basic of all concepts in Torah Judaism is that of life. The Torah (Leviticus 18:5) decrees, "Ye shall keep My statues and My ordinances; if a man does them, he shall live by them; I am the L-rd." And the Rabbis (Yoma 85b) declare:

"From where do we know that the saving of a life transcends the observance of the Sabbath? Because the Biblical words 'if a man does them, he shall live by them' [imply that he should live by the commandments] and not die by them."

In Judaism there is a basic right to live, for the magnificent reason that there is a basic OBLIGATION to live in order to carry out G-d's will. And certainly, it is the most basic obligations in Judaism for a Jewish king or government to defend Jewish lives and property. If need be, he must even go to war to fulfill this obligation. As Maimonides writes (Hilchot Melachim 5:1): "And what is considered an obligatory war? The war against the seven nations, the war against Amalek, and aiding Jews against an enemy that rises against them."

If a king or government fails to protect the people from the "enemy that rises against them," in Judaism's eyes it has failed to live up to its obligation. And certainly, if it refuses to allow the people to defend themselves and, indeed, jails those who do, it loses the right to demand of the people obedience to orders that go against the Torah command of self-preservation, of "he shall live by them" and not die by them.

For the authority of the king - of government - rests on the assumption that the king will obey G-d. When he disobeys Him, his own authority is no longer valid. This is explicitly taught in Sanhedrin 49a:

" 'Any man that shall disobey you and not hearken unto your words...shall die' (Joshua 1:18). Can this also apply to the words of the Torah [i.e., if the authority orders a person to disobey the words of the Torah]? No, for the verse says, 'Only be strong and courageous [to keep the Torah].' "

The explanation of Rashi is categorical: "if the king desires to negate the words of the Torah, we do not listen to him."

Maimonides codifies this law in Hilchot Melachim 3:9: "If a person disregards a king's order because he is engrossed in mitzvot, even a minor mitzvah, he is free from sin because when faced with the words of the master [G-d] and the words of the servant [the king], the words of the master take precedence. And there is no need to say that if the king ordered him to negate a mitzvah that he does not listen to him."

The Jewish concept of government is clear: The government exists to SERVE THE STATE. The state exists to SERVE THE PEOPLE. The people exist to SERVE G-D. The moment that the people FAIL in their obligation, law and order breaks down and divine punishment must follow. The moment that government OPPOSES the law, it creates anarchy and LOSES all moral and legal right to demand obedience from the citizen who desires to be law-abiding.

Thus, when a government demands that a Jew DISOBEY a law, HE MUST DISREGARD THE ILLEGAL ORDER. When a government REFUSES to allow a Jew to obey a legal obligation, HE MUST DEFY THE ILLEGAL ATTEMPT.

Despite the basic difference between Judaism and the secular concept of government, both agree upon one basic axiom: Government is obligated to protect the lives and property of citizens who are threatened, and failure to do so is a basic breach of that obligation. Both Judaism and liberal, democratic Western thought agree that the individual, in order to protect himself, may disregard a government that refuses to protect him and - worse - prevents him from saving himself.

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Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

Otzma Yehudit for Anglos

It Is a Book -1974

Beyond Words Vol 2 pgs 14-15

A story about the fallen soldiers "Yom HaZichron"

IT IS A BOOK - 1974

Rabbi Meir Kahane

The press had announced that, on March 11, booklets listing all 2,482 soldiers who had fallen in the Yom Kippur War would be handed out at post offices throughout the country, and now long lines of Israelis waited patiently to get them. Unlike the usual lines, here were somber and silent people who reached the window, extended a hand and quietly left with their copy. Each one had a special name that he wanted to see. Perhaps a son, a father, a brother, a relative or friend. Immediately, after leaving the line, the pages of the book would be gone through quickly in search of the name.

In one case, the silence on the line was broken by a man who approached the window and could see the stack of literature. He suddenly exclaimed:

“A booklet? It’s a book! My G-d, it’s a whole book!”

Indeed it was, for 2,500 names take up a great many pages, and it was only then that many people could begin to realize the magnitude of the loss. For each line was a person and each person had a family, and each family was left with only memories and sorrow.

Of course, as always, not everything went according to plan. At the main Tel Aviv Post Office on Allenby Street, thousands of people gathered to get their copies, but only 2,500 were delivered. The young soldiers who were handing out booklets couldn’t cope with the confusion and the anger of people who had waited hours and were told that there were no more booklets left.

“How should I know why there were only 2,500 sent here?”

asked an official watching the angry people. “At the Defense Ministry they have a key by which they distribute the material.” At 1:00P.M. the literature began to be handed out and by 1:30 it was gone. Many of the people pleaded for more than one copy.

“It is for my neighbor,” explained the woman. “She is sick and could not come.”

“I am sorry,” was the patient reply, “but the rules are that only one can be given to each person.”

“I want to send one to my relative in America,” cried one man. Again, the shake of the head. It is not allowed.

Outside the post office stand a few who have gotten their booklets. One is an elderly couple. The husband has his arm around his wife as they look silently at a name. A young woman sits alone, quietly weeping.

A day earlier, the booklets had been brought personally, by Defense Ministry people, to the homes of the families of the soldiers who fell. It was a thankless task. Usually it would go as follows:

The messenger arrived at the apartment. In this case, it was an address in the Tel Aviv neighboring city of Ramat Gan. Going up to the second floor, he paused for a moment, swallowed and slowly rang the doorbell. In his hand was the blue envelope that held the booklet, the envelope with the emblem of the Israeli Defense Forces on it.

Heavy steps could be heard from inside the apartment and then the door opened to reveal a short, tired-looking woman.

“I am from the Ministry of Defense,” the messenger began . . .

The woman heard the words and made an effort to overcome her emotions but the tears began to flow. The man held her for a moment to make sure she would not collapse and then led her to a chair. “I brought you the booklet with the names of those who fell. Here is the name of your son ...”

“Thank you,” she replied quietly. “For me, the booklet is not important. You can leave it or not. It does not matter. For me what was important was my son. He was a wonderful boy. A pilot.” She paused and glanced at the page. There was the picture of her son, a handsome young man in pilot’s uniform.

“He was born in war, more than 25 years ago, and died in war. I will never forget how, on the day he was born, the Egyptians bombed the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv. During the war he flew more than 25 sorties into Syria — and returned. And then they sent him to the Egyptian front and he never returned. Why did they have to send him? Was it not enough that he flew so much in Syria?”

“Today is the thirtieth day. Last month they found his body in the vicinity of the Egyptian Second Army ...” She stops and the messenger rises and leaves. He has other “errands” . . .

“I do not know how I get the strength to do this each time,” he says as he climbs the steps to yet another Ramat Gan apart­ment, this one the home of a widow whose husband had been an officer.

The widow and her mother are at home. They knew that someone would come today and they had waited.

They stand as the messenger leafs through the book, searching for the name of the husband who would never return. The wife holds back the tears and the mother clenches her fists. The man finds the name and shows it to them.

“Thank you,” the wife says. “He fell in the north, on the Golan Heights ...”

The man from the Ministry of Defense leaves. The door closes behind him and from inside is heard the faint crying of an infant. . .

March 29, 1974

The Lemming - 1984

K A H A N E

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea -  Spring 5744 -1984

 

THE LEMMING

The lemming looks like a sensible enough animal, but its habit of drowning itself in the sea has long puzzled scientists.  The lemming is a small animal, about the size of a rat.  The lemming is a strange animal with a very strange custom.  The lemming, every few years, gathers together with a great many other lemmings, and they all march together – to the sea.  The lemming and all the other lemmings march shoulder to shoulder and when they reach the sea they do a very strange thing:  They jump in and drown.  The lemming is a very strange animal and no one can understand it.

There are various categories of lemmings and last Saturday night, the Hebrew lemmings gathered in Jerusalem, some several thousand of them, small creatures, the stature of rodents.  And they marched.  Shoulder to shoulder down the road of madness, inexorably moving to the sea of destruction.  The march of the lemmings,  “Suicide Now”.

The Hebrew lemming is a strange animal undoubtedly the most irrational of all.  Psychologists and sociologists and anthropologists and biologists and students of irrational behavior from far and wide gathered to study the march of the Hebrew lemmings.  “Peace Now”, was what they carried as their slogan as they marched to the sea of suicide to partake of the most permanent of peace. “Leave Lebanon” was etched on their banners as they marched in preparation of leaving the world.  “Stop Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories” they proclaimed as they began their uprooting of their settlement on this earth.

The Hebrew lemming is a strange animal and it is said that no one can understand it.  That is not really true.  I understand the small Hebrew lemming, the stature of the rodent, who seeks to leap into the sea to die.  And if the sociologists and psychologists and anthropologists and biologists and students of irrational behavior will gather together, I will describe for you what makes the Hebrew lemmings – run – to commit suicide.

The issue is not and never was “Lebanon”.  The issue was never the “occupied territories of 1967”.  What strikes terror into the hearts of the Hebrew lemmings of the stature of the rodent, is an immense cancer called guilt, that grows inside of them until it gives them no rest.

The lemming of guilt is the Hebrew-speaking rodent who is haunted by the thought that he is not only an oppressor and aggressor in the “occupied lands of 1967” but he is also a thief and robber of a people he calls “Palestinians”, and really has no right to any of the land that was once “Palestine”.  The Hebrew lemming of Suicide Now is haunted by the thought that his family had no right to come from Russia or Poland or Galicia or England or Canada or Argentina or the United States to create a “Jewish State” on lands that were owned by others.

But since the lemming is the size of a rat, who lacks the courage to honestly follow up his convictions, stand up before the “Palestinian” and say:  “I am a thief and I hereby return my kibbutz to you” – he must, instead, fight all the harder for the poor “Palestinian” in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Lebanon.  His weakness and inability to give up his houses in Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’Emek or the artist’s colony of Ein Hod or the tennis courts of Ramat Ha’Sharon or villa in Savyon, drives the Hebrew lemming into even greater depression of guilt and self-hate.  His need to prostrate himself before the poor Arab of any other area except his own house becomes an all-consuming, obsessive one. 

And, of course, the guilt goes much further.  The Hebrew lemming, who is a small animal about the size of a rat, deeply despises with a psychopathic passion everything that smacks of Judaism and the curse of fate that made him Jewish.  In his little heart the lemming knows that Judaism’s values are at odds with everything that he wishes his life to consist of.  The separateness and exclusivity of Judaism vis-à-vis other peoples is anathema to his universalistic desire to intermarry, assimilate, amalgamate with all the goyim and thus find love and escape in their midst.  The concept of Chosenness repels him for he seeks anything that will enable him to eliminate the barriers between Jews and others.  The holiness that decrees discipline and sanctity and abstinence and personal limitations are all diametrically opposed to his materialistic need for total freedom, anarchy, and limitless right to license.  He sees in Judaism racism, primitiveness, parochialism, concepts that he abhors because he seeks to be a universal rodent.  And faced with this Judaism, he is faced, too, with the fact that he is a Jew.  This is the horror that he cannot abide.  From guilt emerges self-hate, black and ugly self-hate.  The lemming must escape.  His escape is through the sea.  The Sea of Suicide, Suicide Now. Let the state that he feels to be a robber state, go under.  Let the people and faith that he sees as reactionary and fascist and abominable, cease to exist.  “Let my soul perish with the Philistines!  The cry of the Hebrew lemmings of Suicide Now. 

The tragic story of the Hebrew lemmings.  But, if it must be, it would be sufficient if they leaped into the sea themselves.  The real tragedy is that while ordinary lemmings take the plunge themselves, the Hebrew ones seeks to take all of us with them.

And that cannot be.  That is why the lemmings of Israel must be fought.  Because they have become more than an interesting zoological phenomenon.  They threaten the existence of normal, healthy, true Jews who are not small animals the size of a rodent.

           

THE GREAT DANGER  (excerpt)

The great danger and most powerful weapon of the Hebrew-speaking gentiles and lemmings of Israel, is their ability to so instill guilt and doubt in us, that we close our mouths and minds and fear to say what we know is to be true.

The small circle of leftists and guilt-ridden liberals, intellectuals and frustrated artistic type, possesses a weapon of overwhelming power, and it is this that enables them to march toward victory.  Their control of the news media affords them the opportunity, daily, to influence, indoctrinate, pervert, corrupt, an entire generation that is their captive audience.  They decree the gentilized foreign culture that becomes the passion of the masses.  They decree the ideas and perverted gentilized values that are heard and propagated over the waves.  An entire generation of youth is in their hands.  And they are aided by the frustrated spiritually sick, lost artists who join them in parody of championing of “peace and love”.  They din their message of perversion into our ears every day, every hour, every minute.

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

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Otzma Yehudit for Anglos

ISAIAH 6: 9-10 1990

K A H A N E

The magazine of the Authentic Jewish Idea

September – October 1990  Ellul 5750 – Tishrei 5751

ISAIAH 6: 9-10 

Some 2500 years ago the Prophet Isaiah was chosen by the Almighty as His prophet to His people, Israel.  And thus did G-d speak to Isaiah:  “… Hear ye indeed – but understand not, and see ye indeed – but perceive not.  Make the heart of the people fat and make their eyes heavy and shut their eyes; lest they, seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears, and understanding with their heart, return and be healed . . .” (Isaiah 6:9-10). 

That the Jewish people in both the Land of Israel and Exile hear and understand nothing and see and perceive not, is so abundantly clear as to be beyond debate.  The only question is whether there is hope left for them or, because of their stubborn refusal to see and understand, the almighty brings down upon us the curse of Isaiah 6: 9-10 in which as punishment, the Jew is no longer allowed to see and understand (See Radak, Ibn Ezra Ibid.).  But whatever the reason for the phenomenon, it is clear; it is an indisputable fact: The Jew is blind and deaf and lacking in understanding.  And worse:  He does not want to see; he does not want to hear; he does not want to understand, because the reality is so difficult and tortuous and agonizing, and it would call upon him to take steps that he refuses to even contemplate. And so, the edge of the cliff comes closer and the coach and its wildly charging horses rush to it.

As I await the resumption of my trial for “incitement” after having stated that the Arabs are a cancer in our midst, I look at an article in the paper today that tells of a policy involving the building that houses the Supreme Court of Israel, the one that ruled that Kahane is a “racist”.  The article describes a policy that bars any Arab from the territories from entering the building even if he is a worker hired to repair the building.    Furthermore, any Israeli Arab, meaning a citizen if Israel, can only enter the building to work with a policeman in tow, who must be with him all the time.

I am deeply moved by this expression of trust in the loyal citizens of Israel and can hardly wait for the Supreme Court to send the racist Kahane to Jail.  This goes along with the policy of the Knesset of Israel which bars any Arab from working in the building, even as a waiter, and any Arab taxi driver from entering past the guard post. 

Indeed, as I once told Arab Knesset Member Muhammad  Watad, in replying to his motion to condemn Kach’s victory in the Kiryat Arba elections:  If you had not been elected as a Knesset Member you would not be allowed here as a waiter. 

And then, I read about a secret military prosecution report to the Attorney General and the State Attorney (who led the fight to bar me from the Knesset), which states that Faisal Husseini is one of the four Arab leaders of the intifada and the PLO’s representative. I know that at that moment, Husseini was in the U.S. with Moshe Dayan’s daughter, being welcomed and cheered by liberal Jews, by Jewish leaders and temple rabbis, and spoke at the Los Angeles Jewish Federation building, from which Jewish “racists” are barred.

And then, I go over the foreign news and my heart is warmed by such items as Amal and Hezbollah factions killing each other by the scores in southern Lebanon; Christians and Moslems doing the same in Beirut.  Tamales and Singhalese are massacring each other in Sri Lanka; Serbs and Croats engage in bitter dispute in Yugoslavia along with fighting between Serbs and Albanians while the Slovenes there want to break away and form their own state, and the Macedonians are demanding land from Greece which is engaged in a bitter dispute with Turkey in Cyprus, while the former is furious over Bulgarian treatment of its ethnic Turks.  Meanwhile, the Kurds are fighting the Turks (and the Iraqis) for their own land and the Iraqis take over Kuwait which was already sending back Palestinians who work in its oil fields because they are an internal danger . . .

And watching all this is Great Britain, which demands that Israel sit down with the PLO while it refuses to meet with the IRA which kills three policemen and a nun in its struggle against the Protestants.  And in the capital of the European Common Market, Belgium, Flemish and Walloons fight a bitter language battle that tears the country apart, and the sick giant of the East, the Soviet Union, is hardly Soviet and less of a union with tens of different ethnic groups shouting “nyet, we want out.”  And in the New World, the French dream about a Quebec libre, and the Indians in New York State and Canada and all over are on the warpath and in Los Angeles an Hispanic school district is carved out, and blacks hate Koreans, and whites hate blacks and vice-versa, and it is so clear that if only Jews had the good will and made the necessary compromises they and the Arabs could live together happily because they have so much in common...!   

No, there is no doubt.  It is a people that are very disturbed.  Seeing nothing, hearing nothing, understanding nothing and not wishing to.

And then, a long article appears in the Friday edition of Ha’aretz. The title?  “Israel Arabs Seek Autonomy.”

Indeed! Boker Tov!  Good morning.  Surprise.  And after autonomy? Guess, dear Jew.  But what most impresses me is the following quote from the article: “The Arabs of the Galilee speak bitterly about the official description of the state as the ‘Jewish people’s state.’”  In their eyes, there is a contradiction between this and the universal description that maintains that a state is first and foremost the state of all its citizens.”

Well, well, well.  And when did we first hear that?  And who was the first to declare that there is a basic contradiction between a democratic universal state and a Jewish one?  Of course the Arabs are right.  And of course we must choose and of course we must choose a Jewish state and of course the Arabs must go and of course it is because they are a cancer.  I say it again and if the government wants to put me on trial again, let them do so.  But the truth is the truth.  They are a cancer; a dangerous and spreading one and they must go.

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

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Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

Otzma Yehudit for Anglos

THE FINAL REDEMPTION

From Barbara Ginsberg’s Desktop

RABBI MEIR KAHANE – OR HARA’AYON

THE JEWISH IDEA

Volume 2

THE FINAL REDEMPTION

(Excerpts)

Do the renaissance of the Jews’ land, its sovereignty, and the ingathering of the exiles not constitute the slightest fulfillment of G-d’s promise: “The L-rd your G-d will then bring back your remnants and have mercy on you.  He will once again gather you from among the nations where He scattered you” (Deut. 30:3)?  Do enormous, unbelievable miraculous victories which occurred in four days and in six days, in which we walked on the high places of our enemies who are as numerous as the sand by the sea, and who possess mighty weapons, not constitute signs unparalleled in their openness?  Do our being raised up from the unparalleled lowliness of the Holocaust, the donning of raiment’s of the national glory, the destruction of the enemy who rose up to annihilate us and the liberation of our holy lands who return we never have dared hope for, have so little significance?  All this we saw, open miracles and wonders, and not only did we not recognize the miracles but treated them with scorn.

How could we have failed to prostrate ourselves in thanks, in acknowledgement and joy, in recognition and admiration, in praise and glory to our Maker?  Could the end of days be any more obvious?  We were smitten with blindness and did not absorb what our eyes saw.  Our senses were blunted by the exile sickness, which saps the spirit and turns the Jewish People into the one of whom it was said, “You hear but you do not understand.  You see, but you do not perceive” (Isaiah 6:9). G-d have mercy!

Many fine people ask a question:  How can we say that the events that have occurred in our day and the establishment of a Jewish state involve the hand of G-d, when those who established the state are wicked heretics?  The answer is that indeed, most of them were wicked, spiteful renegades who banded together against G-d and Torah in an effort to cast off the yoke of Heaven; and they shall forever pay for their malicious sins, especially for murdering the souls of tens of thousands (and more) of innocent Jews who came up to the Land, their Torah with them.  These are Jews who won out over the nations in the exile only to be vanquished by wicked Jews, an woe to those advocates of “groundless love” who try to cover up for these evildoers and their deeds.

Even so, however, none of this has any connection to the establishment of the state, which is, indeed, the hand of G-d in accordance with all the principles of  Kiddush Hashem enumerated previously: that G-d is crowned Supreme King of Kings only in accordance with His might and power appearing in the world; that the nations measure G-d’s power according to the strength or weakness of His people, Israel; and that despite Israel’s not deserving redemption and salvation, G-d still saves them in order to sanctify His name. The Jewish state came into being only to erase the scourge of Chilul Hashem: “When they came unto the nations…they profaned My holy name. Israel’s very presence in the exile, an uprooted minority scattered and homeless among the nations, exposed to the majority’s onslaughts, pursued and humiliated and murdered for being weak and cut off from their land, army and pride – all this is itself a Chilul Hashem.

The redemption which began despite our sins in order to sanctify G-d’s name before the nations in might and splendor, has, in the hands of an “ungrateful, unwise nation” (Deut. 32:6), turned into a profanation and a blasphemy carried out precisely by those whom G-d thought to redeem.  If the beginning of the redemption and the state served to sanctify

G-d’s name, then the only way to move on  to “hasty” redemption is to continue reinforcing the Kiddush Hashem through trusting in G-d and liquidating the Chilul Hashem without fear of the non-Jew, without fear of flesh and blood.  Every retreat, every submission, every concession to the non-Jew, every hand raised against the Jew, every attack, let alone murder, of a Jew in the Land, every taunt and curse by a non-Jew in the Land, is a Chilul Hashem. If such Chilul Hashem exists, it is many times more severe than any other type, for it occurs within the state which arose exclusively to eradicate Chilul Hashem.  Now, instead of continuing to reinforce the Kiddush Hashem process, the Jewish People retreat and profane G-d’s name.

Whoever allows the non-Jew in Eretz Yisrael to rise up profanes G-d’s name with terrible contempt.  If G-d gave s large portions of Eretz Yisrael as part of the start of redemption, in order to sanctify His name through the most remarkable, might victories, and someone is later ready to concede parts of the Holy Land and hand them over to the nations, he profanes G-d’s name with disgraceful blasphemy. Whoever does not allow Jews to live everywhere in the Land, whoever ties their hands and prevents their taking the revenge of G-d and Israel against the nations who curse and revile G-d and His Messiah, profanes G-d’s name and profanes the great miracle and the powerful dream realized by G-d at the start of the redemption.

Whoever sees the rebirth of Eretz Yisrael and a Jewish state and understands that he can easily flee the defilement of the nations and the exile and move to the Holy Land; whoever knows that G-d has opened the last chapter of the existence of the world, which is approaching the end of the sixth thousand, and that G-d is beginning to sanctify His name, profaned among the nations, by returning Israel to their land, thereby preparing to blot out the exile, symbol of Chilul Hashem – whoever knows all this, yet remains among the nations and their defilements, loathing the delightful Land, profanes G-d’s name and His beloved land.

And whoever remains there out of fear and dread of the nations, or out of doubts and uncertainties regarding his livelihood or the dangers of the Land, thereby demonstrates total lack of faith in Hashem as the G-d of Israel, Supreme, Omnipotent King of Kings; and there is no Chilul Hashem more degrading, for it borders on atheism.  Yet, all attempts to flee the challenge and mission which G-d placed on our necks as a dear and gladdening yoke will be to no avail.

The ledger is open, the hand is recording, and the last chapter of the world’s existence is being written.  Redemption is drawing near, and the doorposts tremble at the resounding voice asking, “’in haste’ or ‘in its time’?”

 Written in 1996

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Moses Speaks To Pharaoh "No Retreat No Compromise" 1977

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K A H A NE The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea
Shavat –5737 February – 1977

DIVREI TORAH

Moses Speaks To Pharaoh  "No Retreat No Compromise "

“And Pharaoh called to Moses, saying: Go and worship the L-rd. Only your sheep and cattle will remain – your children will also go with you. And Moses said: You will also give us offerings and sacrifices for the L-rd our G-d, and our flocks will go with us…” (Shmot 10:24-26)

The ninth plague-darkness – has struck Egypt with a vengeance and Pharaoh breaks. Step by step he has retreated and after the eighth plague – locusts – he was prepared to allow the Jews to leave except for their children. Now he surrenders almost entirely as he agrees that all the Jews can leave. He only asks one thing, one compromise, one small victory for himself, that the Jewish cattle remain behind.

Consider; the Jews have been slaves for 210 years. They have lived in misery and persecution. They suffered decrees such as the one casting their male children into the sea. They cried out unto the L-rd for freedom and salvation. Now, apparently the great moment has arrived! Pharaoh agrees that they shall go free! What does it matter that he asks for their cattle? Give it to him! The main thing is peace and salvation and we are willing to give up cattle for peace!

But Moses knows that this is not the purpose of the freedom of the Jewish people and of the story of the slavery and exodus. He is not prepared to compromise one inch because he knows what the purpose of G-d is. When Moses first entered the presence of Pharaoh and said: “The L-rd, G-d of the Hebrews, has said: Let my people go!” Pharaoh contemptuously answered: “Who is the L-rd? I know not the L-rd and will not let Israel go!” Here is where the battle was joined. Here is the purpose and aim of creation – to have the world recognize the dominion and kingship of the L-rd being challenged. Pharaoh must be made to recognize and totally acknowledge the sovereignty of the L-rd over him and his people. He cannot make compromises; he cannot strike bargains. He must submit totally!

“And I shall be glorified through (the defeat of) Pharaoh and his army and Egypt shall know that I am the L-rd.” Only the total defeat of the wicked can raise and honor the name of the L-rd, says the Biblical commentator Rashi. This is why there will be no compromise with Pharaoh. He must totally submit, he must totally surrender.

And even when he apparently does this, after the plague of the first born, when he runs to Moses and says: “Get out, take your flocks with you, just leave and ask the L-rd to bless me!” Moses refuses and in the words of the Mechilta; “And he called unto Moses and Aaron in the middle of the night and said: get up and leave! Said Moses unto him: No, we have been ordered not to leave our houses until morning. What are we, thieves that we should slink out in the night? No, we will leave only in the morning with an upraised arm before the eyes of all the Egyptians!”

Not one inch of retreat here. The lesson of the L-rd being the Omnipotent, King of the universe must be seen and acknowledged.

The lesson is an eternal one and must be learned in our time, too. The question of peace in the Middle East is a question of the Arabs and the world acknowledging the total sovereignty of the All Mighty. There can be no compromise on this. It is only a peace that comes with Arabs submitting to the yoke of the heavenly kingdom that will be a permanent one and the Jew who gives up part of his land as a compromise, violates the entire purpose of the rise of the Jewish State and the demand of the All Mighty that the nations acknowledge Him as King. There can be no retreat from land because that is in essence a retreat also from the Kingship of the

L-rd.

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Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

Otzma Yehudit for Anglos

THE GREAT SABBATH 1989

“K A H A N E”

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea

Nissan -5749   April-1989

D I V R E I  T O R A H

THE GREAT SABBATH

It is the necessary, the indispensable preface and introduction to Passover.  It is the explanation that cries out the ultimate message of the holiday, the basic lesson of the feats of our freedom.  It is the foundation of foundations that raises Passover from an insipid, saccharine social custom beginning and ending with recipes printed in the New York Times women’s section; from a golden opportunity for Manischewitz to return to Jewishness through capitalist Passover profits even as the truly frum, raise their level of religiosity by raising the level of prices; from a Jewish people that marches on its Seder stomach even as it moves on to the annual national lie. “Next Year in Jerusalem.”  It is the Great Sabbath, which attempts to save Judaism from myopic ritualism, to make the Jew, Jewish and the Orthodox, religious.

Sabbath Hagadol, the great Sabbath.  The Sabbath preceding the Passover, the Sabbath that cries out the basic, the ultimate message of the enormous Exodus from Egypt, of Passover itself.  Sabbath Hagadol that gives us the lesson without which Passover, the Jewish people itself, lose all reason for being.  Sabbath Hagadol commemorating the basic lesson of Judaism: Faith, real faith, faith in G-d who really is greater than the mighty Pharaoh, or the regal Reagan or the burning-less Bush – Sabbath Hagadol. The great Sabbath, that began more than 3,000 years ago on a Sabbath in Imperial Egypt.

“Speak unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: In the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb…”

It is a special, an awesome commandment, one that is given to every Jew, hence the unique words “Speak unto all the congregation.”  Take a lamb and bind it up for four days.

You believe that this is a simple commandment.  Hardly.  The lamb is more than an animal; it is the very god of Egypt.  It is a deity, a hallowed creature before whom the Egyptian bows and whose meat dare not touch his mouth.  And the Jews, “every man” thereof, are commanded to take this lamb, this Egyptian god, the deity of their masters, and tie it to their beds, to their posts, bind it up.  And when the astonished and outraged Egyptian masters will ask: “What are you doing? The answer shall be: We shall soon slaughter this lamb, the deity, your god, and eat it.

Do you still think this is a simple, bland commandment?  It is a commandment fraught with danger to life, a commandment that surely sent fear down the spines of the Jewish slaves, that, without a doubt, led scholars to rush and ponder whether pikuach nefesh, danger to life might perhaps demand the postponing of the dangerous commandment.

Nor does the Almighty stop there.  He insists on a policy of extremism, of goading the gentile.  Not content with a commandment that cries desecration of the Egyptian god, that taunts him with the sight of his deity bound up, the G-d of Israel insists that the Jew add salt to the wound.

“And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire… eat it not partially cooked, nor boiled in water, but roasted with fire, its head with its legs and with its insides complete.”

Awake and consider!  This is what Passover is all about; only this! This is Judaism what Judaism is all about; only this!  This is what the duty and the role and the essence of the Jew is all about; only this!  To affirm to the world, but first to ourselves that the L-rd, the G-d of Israel, is.  That He truly does exist, that He is the One, the only One, that He, only He, directs the world, the fate of man, the destiny of His people.  That whatever will be for the Jew will be only because He so decrees.  That the gentile has no relevance to the Jewish fate, that the Pharaohs of all time, the ones in Egypt and the ones in Washington are utterly irrelevant to what will be with the Jew.

On the Great Sabbath in Egypt, the L-rd taught us the lesson that we trampled in the dust, the dust of secularism and the dust of the yeshiva world alike: The lesson that the Jew must raise high, must flaunt the glory and Omnipotence of his G-d.  That the world must be compelled to see their deities, their gods and idols, bound up and humiliated and destroyed.  That one must goad the gentile in order to raise high the banner of the L-rd.  That Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of the Name of the G-d of Israel, demands an open, fearless, flaunting sacrifice of the idols and deities of the gentiles that deny the uniqueness of the G-d of Israel, His exclusiveness, His Oneness!  The lamb is openly tied and those who tremble and whisper: “But we dare not goad the gentile,” are silenced with thunderous contempt.  The lamb is slaughtered and roasted whole and fully and openly.  It cannot be hastily covered in a pot where it will not be seen.  Its identity cannot be disguised by cutting its body into pieces.  We cannot escape the danger of the gentile by avoiding confronting and goading him.  No.  Precisely the opposite!

The same gentile who thundered and thunders: “Who is the L-rd?  I know not the L-rd and will not let Israel go!” must be taught the eternal lesson of: “The L-rd is G-d, the L-rd is G-d!”  The gentile does not wish to “know” G-d, to acknowledge His exclusive kingship.  He must be taught that lesson in an open and bold and humiliating way.  He and his idols must be humbled and broken.  The lamb is taken openly.  The lamb is slaughtered openly.   And those who cringe in populism and whisper:  “But one dare not goad the gentiles…” are silenced by the thunder of the L-rd, whose commandment is eternalized by the Rabbis of the Great Sabbath, Sabbath Hagadol.  So, let that Sabbath be understood and appreciated and embraced.  For without it, there cannot be a Passover, an understanding of what that Passover really is.  And without that, when the Jewish child asks for the meaning of this night, the pathetic father who knows not what to tell him will doom his child to become a pathetic as he: practitioner of Jewish ritual, but never, never a religious Jews.

Anyone reading this Rabbi Meir Kahane or Rabbi Binyamin Kahane  article and is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles 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

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Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

Otzma Yehudit for Anglos