Thursday, June 23, 2016

Pikuach Nefesh Is Irrelevant -1979

Kahane on the Parsha

Rabbi Meir Kahane- Parshat Shlach

PIKUACH NEFESH IS IRRELEVANT

"Send forth men to spy out the Land of Canaan" (Numbers 13:1). ("All 'men' mentioned in Scripture are men of importance."--Rashi)

"So I took 12 men from among you, one from each tribe" (Deuteronomy 1:23). ("From the choicest of you, from the most excellent."--Rashi)

The Children of Israel approach the Land of Canaan. It is only a matter of days before they enter it. They turn to Moses, asking him to send spies to search out the land. Moses is not displeased, for after all, one does not count on miracles. Moses agrees. But he knows that the word of G-d is true and unbreakable. He chooses, therefore, not men of great military or technical knowledge in intelligence work, but rather "men." Men of importance; men of quality; THE VERY BEST among the Jews, the heads of the tribes. These are learned men, these are righteous men, these are men who studied Torah at the feet of Moses. These are the leaders of the generation.

"Go," says Moses, "and spy out the land." He has no doubts or fears. After all, with whom are we dealing here? Little people? People of small mentalities and vision? No, we deal here with the scholars and great ones of the generation.

They return. THEY TELL THE TRUTH. They tell the entire truth. It is a fine land, a wonderful land, truly a blessed country. BUT WE CANNOT GO UP TO IT; WE CANNOT CONQUER IT. Why? Because "the people that dwell in the land are powerful and the cities are fortified and very great, and we saw the children of giants there...and we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so did we appear in their eyes" (Numbers 13:28-33).

And the people heard these words and began to weep. All night they weep; it is the night of the ninth of Av. They gather about Moses and cry out: "What are you telling us to do, to go up to the land? Surely we will be killed! Why did we leave Egypt? LET US GO BACK..."

The Torah is NOT a book of stories meant to entertain or titillate. "The deeds of the forefathers are signs for the children," the Rabbis tell us (Tanchuma, Lech Lecha 9). They are there for us to learn what to do, and what not. Every story is a lesson for our times. Let us see what occurred.

Is it possible that the chosen men of scholarship and greatness defied the word of the L-rd with impunity? Was there some heedless revolt here? Hardly. The great heads of the tribes looked about the land and saw exactly what they said they saw: powerful people, powerful cities, dangerous giants. Of course they wished to enter the Land of Israel and settle in their own country. But there was something that stood in their way. DANGER! TRUE DANGER! A danger to their VERY LIVES and the lives of the Jewish people!

And so they ruled halachically: DANGER TO LIFE TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER TERRITORY. Danger to life takes precedence over the Land of Israel itself. "Let us appoint for ourselves a leader and go back to Egypt" (Numbers 14:4). Not, G-d forbid, to assimilate, but rather - in the face of the danger of war - to build for ourselves a Jewish community there in Egypt. One that will be religious, one that will have an eruv; one that will have very kosher meat, on that will be a Crown and a Borough and a New Zion.

And the Almighty hears the halachic ruling and asks: "How long will this people FAIL to believe in me and in My sings and power???" (ibid. 14:11-12).

What is G-d saying? Why is He angry? Is there not justification for giving up land, the entire country, in the face of danger? Do not the mitzvot of living in the land and the prohibition against giving up the land pale into secondariness in the face of the great admonition to flee from danger?

But the Almighty has long since taught the Jews that this is not so. He lays down a mitzvah that is known as milchemet mitzvah, an obligatory war. It is a war that is binding upon the people and that needs no Sanhedrin, no prophet, no Temple. It is a mitzvah that declares: to conquer the Land of Israel, to repel an enemy that comes and demands your land or who refuses to give up a part of the land, is an OBLIGATORY WAR. Danger to life? Danger to life transcending and cancelling the mitzvah of an obligatory war? The contradiction is obvious. Is there a war that is NOT dangerous??? Is there a war in which we do NOT face danger??? Is there a rule that says: We must go to war unless it becomes dangerous! Say this and you permanently uproot the entire concept and mitzvah from the Torah.

Of course, wars are dangerous, and of course, there are times when the enemy is powerful and more so than the Jew. But the very essence of an obligatory war is to manifest faith in the Almighty, to sanctify His Name by going to war with the enemy and by triumphing against the natural odds. An obligatory war is Kiddush Hashem. It is the PROOF and MANIFESTATION of our FAITH!!!

And so the Almighty looks at the great men who are tiny of faith and cries out: How much longer will it be before they learn to believe in Me??? How much longer will it be before they have the faith to leave their Exile and come willingly up to the difficult land? How much longer will it be before they rule that one is not allowed to give up one inch of My land and that the concept of "danger to life" is irrelevant in the case of an obligatory war whose purpose is to manifest faith in and sanctify the Name of G-d? How much longer must G-d wait for men of faith???

The Jewish Press, 1979

Shabbat Shalom!

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Newly published “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

Rebbitzen Libby Kahane is happy to announce that the second volume, “Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought, 1983-1976” is available on Amazon.com. The book comes up immediately when you type into the main search box: Meir Kahane Life 1976

Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought, 1976-1983” (volume 2), has been published. and now available in Israel. Can be bought from Yeshivat Haraayon Hayehudi (02-5823540) and from Pomeranz Books (02-6235559)

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Thursday, June 16, 2016

Rabbi Binyamin Kahane "We Were Just Following Orders" -1995

Kahane on the Parsha
Rabbi Binyamin Kahane- Parshat Beha'alotcha

"WE WERE JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS"

As national catastrophe hovers over us, many religious Jews are beginning to understand (better late than never) the fatal mistake they made all these years in not thinking big when it came to national politics. The most they ever desired was membership in the coalitions of various governments, Right, and Left. They never went for all the marbles -- that is, to grab hold of the reins of leadership and lead the Jewish people. Only now, as the country is disintegrating, are they finally realizing that they must step up and offer the people an entirely different path -- a Jewish path -- if Israel is to survive.

And so, the time has come to ask: What are the characteristics of a true Jewish leader???
The answer to this question is in our parsha, which discusses the very first Sanhedrin in Jewish history. Moses had reached his breaking point and told G-d, "I can't carry the burden of this people alone, for it is too heavy for me" (Numbers 11:14). Whereupon G-d told him to find 70 elders to help him. But whom to choose? How does one select 70 leaders? After all, there was no shortage of righteous and talented Jews around.

G-d, however, immediately singled out a specific group: the officers of the Children of Israel in Egypt. Who in the world were these officers and why did they deserve to lead the Jewish people? In Parshat Shemot, Pharaoh lays down a rather heavy edict on his Jewish slaves. They must produce a specific quota of bricks without even being given straw. The Jewish officers are ordered by the Egyptian taskmasters to see to it that the quota is met. If it isn't the officers will be blamed for the shortage and beaten. The officers, therefore, are in a dilemma: Either they beat their brothers mercilessly and save their own skin, or they disobey orders and suffer the consequences.

How would we expect them to behave? We are all too familiar with the claims of many soldiers and policemen in Israel today: "Nu, What can I do? I'm just a small screw in a big machine. I'm just following orders." We might expect the Jewish officers in Egypt to similarly rationalize, "Yes, we are with you. The edict is cruel. But, nu. what can we do? We are just following orders." But that is NOT what the Jewish officers say to their brothers in Egypt!!!
The officers recognize the cruelty of the decree and refuse to obey it! And they suffer the consequences: "The Jewish officers were beaten in place of the people as they were unwilling to turn them over to the taskmasters. They said, 'It is better that we be hit and not let the rest of the people falter'" (Tanchuma, Beha'alotcha 13).

THESE were the people chosen by G-d to lead the Jewish people. They weren't necessarily the most scholarly Jews. However, their hearts burned with Ahavat Yisrael. They did not merely pay lip service to the concept of Ahavat Yisrael. They were genuinely ready to suffer for their brothers.
BEHOLD THE CHARACTER OF TRUE LEADERS!!!
Darka Shel Torah, 1995

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Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Savuot Divrei Torah 1977

K A H A NE

The magazine of the authentic Jewish Idea

Shavuot, Sivan 5737 - May 1977

DIVREI TORAH

We are told that when the L-rd desired to give the Torah to the Jewish people, instead of choosing some lofty and majestic mountain, He selected Sinai, a small, humble little mount barely more than a hill. His purpose in this symbolic act was to show that man must turn his back on overbearing pride, must reject a false ego.

It is related in the name of the Gerer Rebbe: G-d’s intentions are indeed laudable. Yet, if He intended to show that man must not be a mountain and must turn down false pride, why was the Torah not given in a valley?

The answer is clear, the answer is bold: It is not enough to reject overbearing pride. Too much humbleness is, itself wrong. Man should, man must possess some pride in his being – otherwise he is not a man

I never cease to be amazed that we continue to be valleys. I never cease wondering at our choosing the way of the meek. One would imagine that after all the “help” we have failed to receive; we would have remembered the lesson of the mountain.

These are sad times when we must still – just for the moment – the voice of Jacob, and for the sake of Jewish honor, of Jewish protection, don the hand of Esau.

Vandals attack a Yeshiva – let that Yeshiva attack the vandals. Should a gang bloody a Jew, let a Jewish group go looking for the gang. This is the way of pride – not evil pride, but the pride of nation, of kinship – the pride of the mountain.

There are those who will protest: This is not the Jewish way. And yet since when has it been a Mitzvah to be punished and beaten? Since when is it a Kiddush HaShem (Sanctification of G-d} to be spat upon and smeared with vegetables? It is not a Kiddush HaShem, it is quite the opposite. It is a disgrace to the pride of our people, our G-d. More important – there is a rule in the hoodlum jungle: The more the victim backs away, the more the hoodlum moves forward.

The same holds true for all other areas of Jewish persecution, Jewish teachers are being harassed and forced from jobs; Jewish merchants are robbed, looted and driven from their business establishments.

Is the way out to bow to extremism and Nazi tactics? Can one buy his freedom and life from the psychotics and extremists? I think not!

Up from the valley and up to the Mount, Jewish rights are not cheap and Jewish defense is not wrong. This is the lesson of the Mount.

Israel and deep desire for the dismantlement were obvious to all who wished to see.

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Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Forty Years - 1982

RABBI MEIR KAHANE

FORTY YEARS (excerpts)

[Written in 1982 and Rabbi Meir Kahane HY”D saw the handwriting on the wall and warned us what will be.] bg

“They refused My counsel, they despised My reproof; therefore shall they eat of the fruits of their own path, and be filled with their own devices. “ (Proverbs 1)

The reality is that the same Israel which rejected G-d for the love of the gentile; which made concession after concession and which sacrifices Jewish lives and Jewish land, which chose Man over G-d is the worst possible desecration of the Name – faces the immutable future of isolation and rejection on the part of a gentile world that moves inexorable to force her into even more concessions until the final one – extinction. We seek the support of the broken reed called Man? Here it is; we lean upon it even as it breaks and drives its slivers deep into us.

“Now behold thou trustiest upon the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, on which if a man lean it will go into his hand and pierce it, so Pharaoh King of Egypt unto all that trust in him” (Kings II. 18). [change Egypt for the U.S.]bg

More, the full meaning of the measure for measure is the fact that the lack of faith, the fleeing to the gentile, the clear message of fear and dependency upon him, must only INVITE pressure and strangulation. We open the doors to his crushing, chocking demands, precisely through our fear of him. That which we most fear – isolation and hostility – we bring directly upon ourselves. “How wondrous are Thy works, O L-rd!”

“We looked for peace but no good came, and for a time of healing and behold trouble!” (Jeremiah 8

Despite all concessions and retreats, the Jewish State will remain a pariah, rebuked, condemned, brutalized in the Council of Nations and Abominations. It will cling pitifully to one ally whose pressure grows regularly and who, seeing how Israel retreats in the face of it; will repeat it with ever greater frequency and pain. The ally has its interests that clash with those of the Jewish State. The sickly moans of protest by Jews that Israel is of vital interest to the ally will go unheeded by gentiles who thirst for Arab oil, hunger for Arab financial investment and business opportunities, languish for Arab military and strategic commitments to fight the Red Baron of Moscow. Prostrating Prime Ministers may flatter the gentile in a manner that transcends embarrassment and plead for a treaty of defense and partnership. Israeli actors cannot match the gentile ones and the Jew will receive compliments along with the painful strangulations, but the ally will be creating his bases and training jointly on the soil of the Arab and training jointly with Moslem soldiers. “The Arab and the Ally” is the sign of the partnership office in the Middle East. “Consider my enemies for they are many and they hate me with cruel hatred.” (Psalms 25)

Israel will be, at best, a nuisance for America. It will become – more and more and America will say openly – an increasingly intolerable burden to be dropped. The price for Arab aid and alliance being the divestment of Israel, the gentile begins to do just that. Such is the result of the seeds of Jewish fear and divestment of G-d. This is the necessary fruit of faithlessness. G-d will never allow salvation through the desecration that is trust in the gentile. “Lo, it is a people that dwell alone.” (Numbers 23)

The Jew, led by men of little faith become masters of political deception, refuses to see it. No matter, it is true, Israel has already collapsed before pressure from the gentile and swallowed Arab humiliation and mockery. There is more to come; much more. Every retreat before the gentile invites more pressure and the fingers will clench about Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the liberated land, including Jerusalem. Those who cry out today: “We must concede and compromise lest we lose the support of our gentile staff”, will say the same tomorrow, and there is no end to it.

“I was a reproach among all my enemies, yes, unto my neighbors exceedingly and a dread to my acquaintance… They devised to take away my life.” (Psalms 31).

The reality is that the leaders of Israel are frightened of the reality. Despite deception and deviousness they – because of lack of faith – have no policy and in their hearts is only the hope of muddling through and gaining time until they have finished their sojourn. Then: Après moi…

They and the people. In the unconscious of the nation is a fear, a terrible fear that perhaps time is not on their side, that ultimately the enemy will win. It is seen in the nervous and tension in the streets and public places. In the growing numbers of people who seek to emigrate. In the private conversations - in the mad, illogical race to live beyond their means, they repeat the call of their fathers: “Eat and drink, for tomorrow…”

A land filled with guilt and fear, a land increasingly sullen, angry, an unhappy land filled with unhappy complaining people. Where once certainty and optimism painted the faces with sun, today the clouds of worry and barely concealed fear darken the countenance. As not an area of national life succeeds and as the piper comes for payment, and as political, economic and social disaster loom, it is a country falling apart even as the leaders of fraud deny it to those who they fear will turn them out of office or take to the streets. And as the fear and guilt and addiction to self and “I” overpower us, hatred between Jew and Jew grows. Hatred between those who differ in politics; hatred between those who differ in country origin; hated between those who have and know not what they have, and all the others. But above all, hatred on the part of the empty-headed and empty-hearted who know the bankruptcy of their lives towards those who speak in the Name of the L-rd and who seek to create a people of the swine, They look upon the representative of Torah and seethingly think to devour him with all the crunching of the donkey. A land made for joy of holiness and the freedom that comes from compliance with the Law of G-d, becomes a sullen place, a prison for those who are chained by their own unfettered desires.

“But you gave the Nazarites wine to drink and commanded the prophets saying: Prophecy not.” (Amos 2).

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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To view Rabbi Meir Kahane site of Youtubes, Videos. CDs posted by Michael Miller go to: http://www.youtube.com/user/bayitvegan

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