Stop Being Defensive Bereishit 1979

Kahane on the Parsha Rabbi Meir Kahane- Parshat Bereishit STOP BEING DEFENSIVE!!! The most famous of all the commentaries of the great Rashi is, undoubtedly, the very first one. Concerning the verse, "In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth..." (Genesis 1:1), Rashi quotes the Midrash that asks: Why did the Almighty begin the Torah with the story of creation? After all, the Torah is essentially a book of laws and statutes. Surely, it should have begun with the first mitzvah the Jews were commanded to keep. The well-known answer is, of course, that the Almighty wished to underline the fact that "He told His people the strength of His deeds in order to give them the inheritance of the nations" (Psalms 111:6). Meaning: Should the nations come to the people of Israel and complain, "You are THIEVES! You have STOLEN the land of the seven Canaanite nations!" the Jews can reply, "The land belongs to the Almighty who created it. By His will He originally gave it to the Canaanites, and by His will He took it from them and gave it to us." Thus the words of Rashi. Nevertheless, a look at the verse from Psalms that is cited gives rise to a question. If the verse is to be an answer to the nations, it should have read, "He told the nations the strength of His deeds," not "He told HIS PEOPLE the strength of His deeds." The answer is, however, that the most serious problem when it comes to the Jewish claim to Eretz Yisrael is not the fact that the nations do not recognize it. The nations are no problem for a Jewish people with faith in G-d. The real tragedy is the fact that so many of the Jewish people THEMSELVES do not believe or have grave doubts about the legitimacy of the Jewish claim to the land. In order to make the nations believe, it is the Jews themselves who must first be convince! And that is why the verse emphasizes, "He told His people the strength of His deeds." If the Jews believe it, they will have the strength and self-confidence to tell the nations. Yet another question is raised by the Siftei Chachamim. In Parshat Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:6), Rashi writes, "[The Canaanites] were capturing the land from the descendants of Shem since Noah had given it to Shem when he divided the land." If that is true, what claim do the nations have on Eretz Yisrael? How can they accuse the Jews of stealing the land? After all, if Noah originally gave the land to Shem and the Jews are his descendants, it is only right for them to retake the land from the Canaanites who stole it in the first place. It appears to me that the answer to this question contains an important lesson for today. Yes, the Jew ONCE lived in Eretz Yisrael and the land ONCE, originally, belonged to Shem, but the nations of the world can always say, "What does it matter what happened centuries ago? People come and people go. What matters is that now, TODAY, the Canaanites live here, and you cannot come after so many years claiming it's yours." Indeed, this is exactly what the Arabs say to the Jewish people today! How do we reply to this claim? The lesson of the first Rashi in the Torah is that, in the end, there are no "logical" or "political" answers to the world. The ultimate answer is only the one: The Almighty created the land. He is the owners and in Him vests all title. He decreed the Jewish people to be His inheritance, and the land to be theirs. Let us believe it and shout it forth joyously. The Jewish Press, 1979 Shabbat Shalom! “Kahane on the Parsha” can be bought at the following links on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kahane-Parsha-Meir/dp/098867680X , it's also available on website, www.BrennBooks.com 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 Facebook Links: Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

I AM NOT ASHAMED 1989

Kahane on the Parsha I Am Not Ashamed I am not ashamed to admit it. I am afraid. I am afraid that my people and my state are marching inexorably to a horror that can best be unimagined. And I am afraid, for the first time, that we are in the hands of people so blind and so mad and so un-Jewish that we may not be able, G-d forbid, to avert the catastrophe. Last week I was at the Western Wall. It was the Friday, after the Friday when the Moslems, standing on the Temple Mount – our Temple Mount – hurled rocks and stones on the Jews praying below. It was the Friday after the Friday when Jews, in the sovereign State of Israel, praying at the remains of the Holy Temple, fled in panic from the Moslems who cried “Allahu akbbar!” It was the Friday after the Friday in which Jews in the State of Israel fled in panic from Moslems who proclaimed their dream of destroying the Jewish state. I was at the Wall on the Friday after the Friday. No less than 3,000(!) security forces were there to protect the Jews in their own state from Moslems who once so trembled before the Jew. Three thousand(!) security forces to protect Jews – who were so frightened that they stayed away in droves. The proud State of Israel…. I am afraid. I am afraid that the Jews of insanity who run this land will destroy us, even as all the impossible Herut fools in the United States continue to write columns attacking the PLO. I am afraid. Last week, I was at the Hebron Jewish cemetery. I saw the swastikas and the Arab graffiti of hate on the walls. I saw the desecrated tombstones. I watched as the Jews held a memorial service. A memorial service! They murder us and they desecrate us and we react with memorial services! That day a rock smashed through the car window of a Jew traveling in Bethlehem, injuring him in the temple, cheek, and shoulder. That day, 600 apple and 50 olive trees were destroyed along with tens of thousands of commercial flowers at the settlement of Nvei Michael. But, I return to the cemetery. How many people, how many Jews, in the world heard of the Hebron cemetery outrage? No matter. How should they have heard of it when the prime minister of Israel, the president of Israel, in its Knesset, and its governmental leaders did not find it necessary to shout their indignation. A week of Chaillul Hashem, of desecration. And the men who run this State of Disorder sit by, hapless and impotent, silent partners to desecration. And I know that the Almighty’s rage will lash out at us for allowing His Name to be defiled. I am afraid for much more. Last week I watched as the insanity spread and reached new heights. The Border Police, the elite security forces, were sent to make arrests in the murderous village of Nahalin. They were attacked by hundreds of stone-throwing, Molotov cocktail-throwing Arabs. The Border Police, under a murderous barrage, fired and killed four Arabs. Only four Arabs. The Arabs shrieked in protest; the pathologically sick leftists joined them and demanded an “investigation”, the army command, led by two kibbutz members, chief of Staff Don Shomron and Central Command OC Amram Mitzna, so ordered. The Border Police were accused of “overreacting” and “indiscriminate shooting,” and two of their officers were suspended from duty. I am afraid. Yesterday they destroyed the army with their insane orders that gobbled the troops, causing them to fear to deal with the Arabs as normal soldier should. Today, the take the best of the security forces, the Border Police, and destroy them, too. And they must be stopped before they destroy the Jewish state – and the Jew. They protest over Nahalin? They investigate attacks on Nahalin? Do you know what Nahalin is? Do you know who the Arabs of Nahalin are? Of course not, so read. And learn. And grow angry and bitter – and do something. In 1948, the villagers of Nahalin participated in the massacre of 35 Jewish students coming to the rescue of Kfar Etzion. They murdered them in cold blood. In 1954, two Jews were murdered by Nahalin villagers leading to a reprisal raid on the village by Israel. At that time, the UN condemned the Jews. Today, the Jews do. When Israel liberated the land in 1967, the normal, sane thing to have done would have been to drive the scum out. But we are not normal. We are not sane. We allowed them to remain along with all the rest of them – the murderous Ishmalites who cannot live with Jews or themselves (and let us raise a toast to gloriously peaceful Beirut). And now we investigate and condemn our Border Police for having “fired indiscriminately” on the village that murdered Jews yesterday, that dreams of murdering them tomorrow, and that attacked the Border Police with hate and rocks and firebombs in their hands. We are insane. We are in the hands of leaders who are insane and who march us down the road to horror and destruction. I am afraid. I am afraid of a government that, instead of supporting the men whom they send into war (and this is a war!); instead of giving them accolades and medals for killing the Arab enemy (and they are the enemy – all of them) – investigates them, censures them, disciplines them. Insanity. And I am afraid. I am afraid. Last week I watched as the police indicted Rabbi Moshe Levinger for doing that which any normal human being would. Driving in the heart of Hebron, a nest of snakes and scorpions, a city of Arabs with Jewish blood on their hands from 1929 – his car was attacked and a stone smashed its window. He ran out shooting at the Jew-haters and killed one. A pity. One. He was indicted and I am afraid. For I fear that we may be lost. I see the leftists who control the state news media even as the pathetic Shamir government does nothing. I see that daily barrage of the state-sponsored self-hate and self-destruction aimed at destroying the morale of the security forces, while the tiny people who run this tiny government sit impotent. I see the defeatists who run the Likud-controlled Ministry of Justice indicting Jews who were attacked, even as the army does the same to its soldiers, and the government of Shamir sits in its perpetual transcendental silence. I watch Shamir and his Likud sell out Israel through the kind of deception we learned from Begin. He prepares elections that will seal the sovereignty of the “Palestinians” over the land, as it leads to the autonomy of Camp David that will whet the Arab appetite and increase the Jewish dementia and result in a “Palestinian” state that will be a dagger in Israel’s heart. I see all this and know that if we are to save the Jewish state and its three-and-a-half million Jews from terrible horrors, we must rise up and demand a fundamental change in the very system of government. We must throw out those who destroy us from within, and keep them out. I know that this present system of government that allows them to control our lives and lead us to destruction must be ended. I know that elections must be limited only to those who understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of the Jewish state, who would bring on us a slow Auschwitz – not with gas, but with knives and hatchets. I know that only groups which accept the following program should be allowed to run for office: To finish the Arab war against Israel with every means at our disposal and an end to the immoral and sick “pity” for them; to remove the Arabs from the land once and for all; to annex Judea-Samaria-Gaza and make them part of the Jewish state; to radically overhaul the bankrupt education of Israel by infusing our children with Judaism and true nationalism; and to cleanse Israel radio and television of the mad and dangerous leftists who, daily, destroy us from within. I know that unless the people rise up and demand such a national referendum, to dissolve the Knesset and vote on such a program, we are lost. And I am afraid. Written in The Jewish Press 1989 Succot Sameach Barbara Anyone reading this Rabbi Meir Kahane article and is not on my personal list to receive the weekly articles written by Rabbi Kahane / Rabbi Binyamin Kahane would like to be, please contact me at: barbaraandchaim@gmail.com To view articles written by Rabbi Meir Kahane go to blog: www.barbaraginsberg-kahane.blogspot.com “Kahane on the Parsha” can be bought at the following links on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kahane-Parsha-Meir/dp/098867680X , it's also available on website, www.BrennBooks.com Facebook Links: Barbara Sandra Ginsberg

Is The Holocaust Really Inexplicable? 1985

Kahane on the Parsha Parshat Nitzavim IS THE HOLOCAUST REALLY INEXPLICABLE? "But if you heart turns away so that you will not hear, but will be drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you this day that you will surely perish..." (Deuteronomy 30:17-18). Whenever anyone asks how G-d could have allowed the Holocaust to take place, it is fashionable to reply, "There is no answer to this question." But our failure to grapple with this issue has caused us to be silent accomplices in the worst of all Jewish sins and crimes: chiruf v'giduf, blasphemy against the L-rd, open insult and attack on His Name, Chillul Hashem. We sit by quietly while Jewish ignoramuses and blasphemers speak of the "death of G-d." And our children turn down the path of apostasy and atheism because our only reply to the attacks of the blasphemers is: "No one can answer the question." But the Holocaust- like the slaughter during the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Chmelnitzki Massacres- has an answer. It is one that we read twice yearly: "If you don't listen to the voice of the L-rd...then all these curses will come upon you" (ibid. 28:15). What is the origin of our dumbness and failure to understand? From where cometh this sudden stupor: "It is a question no one can answer..."? Of course we can answer it, but the irreligious Jew, the one who does not accept the divinity of the Torah, refuses to accept an answer which lays the blame upon HIM, upon the Jew who- knowing of the warning- ignored and disdained it. No, since it is impossible to accept the relationship between Jewish suffering and failure to obey the Law, one must blame G-d. One must ask how the modern G-d, a beaming Santa Claus who would never take seriously our desecration of mitzvot, could do such a thing. In truth, the Orthodox Jew is also to blame. He has created a picture of a saintly European Jewry that leads people to wonder how G-d could have punished such righteous people. This picture, though, is false. It is an image the yeshiva world gave us in its desire to negate the present materialistic, Western one. But by falsely idealizing Man, they have laid the groundwork for the desecration of G-d. By painting the East European Jew as a saint, they designed a G-d of cruelty and irrationality. That most terrible of sins must be ended. We must save G-d and sanctify His Name by telling the truth about European Jewry in the years preceding the Holocaust. Yes, as the nineteenth century passed into its third quarter, the Jew of Russia and Poland was, indeed, observant. But what else could he be? The overwhelming number of Jews lived in a Pale of Settlement where they were isolated from the gentile world and barred from participating in anything else except the society of the shtetl. And that society was religious, in toto...What Jew, even if he wanted to, was prepared to rebel against the society that laid down the religious rules of life? Who was prepared to accept the ostracism that would be his inevitable punishment if he dared throw off the halacha? And so, of course, the Jew was "religious." He had no other choice. But once that choice arrived, look at what happened!!!! The Enlightenment that began to arrive in Eastern Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century quickly swept away a society and structure that had been built up for centuries. Vilna- which had become a byword for piety and Torah learning- gave birth to the Bund, a bitterly anti-religious, anti-nationalist group that saw Jews, who just yesterday were "religious," flocking to its ranks to spout atheistic socialism. Poland and Russia and Lithuania and Galicia- the places that gave us the Rema and the Shach and Chassidim and the great yeshivas- OVERNIGHT gave birth to Jewish communism and socialism and secular Zionism and assimilation. The moment the barriers dropped, the Jew rebelled. This was the reality, and the fault, dear Jews, lies not in G-d but IN OURSELVES!!! And there was, of course, more. There was the terrible oppression of Jewish workers and proletariat by the wealthy Jews, the PARNASIM. Not for nothing did the Bund and communism succeed so easily in attracting poor Jewish workers to their ranks. The low wages and horrible working conditions in the factories owned by Jews are epitomized in the classic story told about the saintly Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev who once visited a matzah bakery on the eve of Passover. There, he saw women and little children working under terrible conditions from dawn to dusk. "Dear G-d," he said, lifting his eyes unto heaven, "what liars are the gentiles! They accuse us of using Christian blood in our matzah. It is not true. We use Jewish blood." And too few know the black chapter of the kidnapped Jewish children of Czarist Russia. When the czar decreed that Jewish children be drafted as "Cantonists" in the army for 25 years, the rabbis declared that the quota imposed on each community be filled by casting lots to see which child would be drafted. Tragically, the wealthy communal leaders would hire gentiles to kidnap the poor Jewish children, lock them up in the synagogue, and keep them to be turned over to the Czarists. The lack of ahavat Yisrael cried out to the heavens!!! Was this "RELIGION"??? Was this a saintly Jewish community that was cruelly and unjustly slaughtered by G-d? The lack of unity and love was epitomized, too, in the incredible number of bitter arguments and splits within the Jewish community. My father, of blessed memory, told me as a child about the split between the chassidim of Sanz and Rizhin, a hatred that reached its climax with chassidim going to the Western Wall to put the Sanzer Rebbe, the great Divrei Chaim, into CHEREM! And at a Shabbat Seuda Shlishit, a chasid attempted to stab the Divrei Chaim... Sinat Chiman ran through East European Jewry as a thread, and the classic example was the Munkatcher Rebbe declaring, concerning the Pressburg Yeshiva founded by the Chasam Sofer, "v'hivdilanu min hato'im- and He has separated us from those who err," even as the Pressburg Yeshiva refused entry to any student who was a member of Mizrachi... And this terrible hatred was, long ago, described by the Rabbis as an unpardonable sin with a terrible, and terribly clear and precise, warning: "How severe is machloket! The Court of Heaven does not punish until one is over the age of 20, and the court on earth does so from the age of 31, but in the dispute of Korach, children of one day old were burned and swallowed up by the earth..." (Tanchuma, Korach 3). And the Rabbis in Shabbat 33b: "When there are righteous in the generation, the righteous are caught for the sins of the generation. When there are no righteous, then little children are caught for the sins of the generation." Let each of us think long and carefully about this. Let us search our souls. And let us remember, on top of all the above-mentioned sins, the refusal to grasp the Land of Israel to our bosom. "And they despised the desirable land" (Psalms 106:24) is the Biblical condemnation of the generation of the desert and its great scholars and leaders who preferred to return to Egypt rather than go to the Land of Israel. Their actions led to the night of "weeping for generations," Tisha B'Av. What shall we say, then, about the rejection of Eretz Yisrael in the decades preceding the Holocaust by so many great religious leaders in Europe? It is time to put an end to the nonsense of "we cannot know the reasons." That answer guarantees the turning away of Jewish youth. It is time to bury the myth of an East European Jewry that was pious and saintly. That insures the creation of a Jewish G-d who is senselessly cruel. It is time to put an end to the indictment of G-d, to blasphemy against the L-rd. The Jewish press, 1985 Shabbat Shalom! May this New Year be a Sweet one with Happiness, Prosperity, Health, Safety and the destruction of our enemies. May the coronavirus leave as fast as it arrived. If you are interested in reading more divrei Torah from Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Binyamin Kahane you can purchase Kahane on the Parsha at Amazon.com Anyone reading this Rabbi Meir Kahane or Rabbi Binyamin Kahane article and is not on my 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 Facebook” Barbara Sandra Ginsberg