Worth Quoting: Rabbi Riskin on American Aliyah

"You Shall posses the Land and you shall settle in it, for I have given the Land for you to possess."-Numbers 33:53
"The Bible tells us that we're supposed to live in Israel, Birkat Hamazon tells us we're supposed to live in Israel, the Amidah tells us we're supposed to live in Israel...We aren't paying attention to the Amidah, we're not paying attention to Birkat Hamazon. You know it's a pity that living in Israel isn't a chumrah like a black hat, then everyone in Boro Park would be rushing to live in Israel! It's ONLY a Mitzvah!-Rabbi Shlomo Riskin on TNL episode #2

Aliyah Update

All right I realized that I completly forgot to keep you guys updated on the Aliyah process. Needless to say I think all of my paperwork is done for both the Embassy, Jewish Agency and Nefesh B' Nefesh.
I learned that this is not going to be the easiest thing. I got my Israeli passport about a month or so ago (yay) and they didn't put my full name in it (noooo). But it's OK for me to make Aliyah with, and I'll have to stop at the Misrat Hapanim and get the name changed when I get to Israel (so not looking forward to that.
Anyway less then 3 months to go and the excitment is definitly rising, as soon as the semester I'm gong to be doing two things:
1. Learning Hebrew intensivly
2. Packing and getting stuff to bring with me

And then July 21 I head to JFK for the flight...Mashiach pending of course. They it'll be sooner.

Giving Our Enemies a Voice

Enemy.

What does that word mean.

Is someone you hate your enemy?

Is someone who hates you an enemy?

In order for two people to be enemies do they have to mutually hate each other?

I just finished reading a speech given by Barack Obama to AIPAC, in which he has an interesting quote:

And my plan includes a robust regional diplomatic strategy that includes talking to Syria and Iran

Let's ask the question why do we need to talk to Syria and Iran? Because according to the United States, the plan is that is, that sometime in the future there will (theoretically) be peace in the entire Middle East. Not an unstable peace, but a real genuine peace.

And therein lies the problem.

In order for a peace to be reached you need to have two sides who agree on something, something that will benefit both sides. What benefit does Iran have in stopping their nuclear program? Or funding terrorists in Israel who kill Jews?

When all you're doing is talking, the most Iran can fear is that they're going to be yelled at.

Then there's the other issue of really suave Middle Eastern men.

When Achmadinajad came to the US to speak back in September, I was struck by how smooth he seemed. If I didn't know who he was I would have thought that he was a nice guy.

But we know what kind of guy he is, he's a guy who stands on balconies and screams "Death to Israel and the Jews" to cheering crowds below.

What gain to we have by talking to them? To understand them more?

The fatal mistake the both the US and Israel are making is that they think that they're dealing with people who think like they do and have the same values as themselves.

George Bush seems to think that he can send the army into an Arab country topple the government, give them cable TV and they're going to love democracy.

As we've seen he hasn't been too successful at that.

But the number one underlying cause of every single conflict in the Middle East stems to down to three question.

How do you define evil?

What does America consider to be evil?

And is the definition of evil different for Obama, McCain, or Clinton?

Because this next president is going to have to be the one to define that question.

In Honor of Post #200... A Little Treat

Worth Quoting: Dave Barry on the Economic Stimulus Payment

"This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

"Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
"A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

"Q. Where will the government get this money?
"A. From taxpayers.

"Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
"A. Only a smidgen.

"Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
"A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

"Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
"A. Shut up."

A Little Pre-Pesach Torah

SEFER CHOFETZ CHAIM

Day 15 – Other Forms of Negativity

While the Scriptural prohibition against loshon hora applies only to speaking about the living, our Sages prohibit making slanderous remarks about the deceased.

It is also forbidden to speak negatively of our beloved land, Eretz Yisrael. As the Torah relates, the generation that merited to be liberated from Egypt spent forty years in the Wilderness and died there because of evil speech concerning the Land ( See Bamidbar chs. 13-14).

In truth, it is proper to avoid focusing on the negative unnecessarily even when discussing non-sacred objects. The early commentators tell of the wise man and his students who came upon the carcass of an animal. When the students commented on its foul odor, the wise man responded, “But see how white are its teeth!”

The Most Important Place in the World

Response to a Comment

I received a comment from straightchris who lives in London on the post I did entitled "How the Arabs Twist it:"

This is very interesting I don’t believe that this issue has been properly debated or researched in English.
I think that Norman Finkelstein has mentioned that a paper should be available on this topic soon.
I am for the right of return for Palestinians on principle, however, Norman Finkelstein said that Noam Chomsky believes that it is unrealistic to campaign for the right of return.
Forgive me, but I have not properly read the bill but I will be looking for responses from our respective positions and will try to promote this issue as much as I can.

I am for non-violent resistance against the current Israeli actions and politics.

There a few things I want to respond to, number one being why I posted that video in the first place.
When I was in Yeshiva we had a speaker, supposedly an Muslim Arab professor from the University of Haifa. He was going to have a debate with one of our Religious Zionist rabbi's, on the topic of who has the rights to the Land of Israel.

To make a longs story short, the guy made a claim that Israel was not a legitimate state and that the Jews should leave immediately because they were occupying and stealing Palestinian land. He talked about the Palestinian Right of Return...the usual stuff.

My rabbi responded to this claim, and then both sides took questions from the audience and we had a break.
After the break the "Muslim" was given the chance to open up, and he stood up and put on a kippah.
It turned out that he was not a Muslim, but a Jew who had been thrown out of an Arab county (I don't remember off hand which one) right after the creation of the State of Israel.

He had been acting as a Muslim in order to give us an idea of what we would be presented with in the coming years in our experience on campus and in the workforce.

One thing I also wanted to add, was I checked out this guys blog, just to know who I was dealing with. I found a link to an article from the Electronic Intifada entitled "How Barack Obama Learned to love Israel."

(Note: I want to make it very clear that I do not know this person, therefore I do not want to pass judgement on him, nor do I want anyone else to pass judgment on him, particularly because of the article. I am posting this so we have an idea of what kind of "group" he fits into, not judging the actual person)

Was a very interesting quote in the article that attempted to put Obama in a negative light due to his supposed support of Israel.

He [Obama[ recalled a January 2006 visit to the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona that resembled an ordinary American suburb where he could imagine the sounds of Israeli children at "joyful play just like my own daughters." He saw a home the Israelis told him was damaged by a Hizbullah rocket (no one had been hurt in the incident).

Six months later, Obama said, "Hizbullah launched four thousand rocket attacks just like the one that destroyed the home in Kiryat Shmona, and kidnapped Israeli service members."

Obama's phrasing suggests that Hizbullah launched thousands of rockets in an unprovoked attack, but it's a complete distortion. Throughout his speech he showed a worrying propensity to present discredited propaganda as fact. As anyone who checks the chronology of last summer's Lebanon war will easily discover, Hizbullah only launched lethal barrages of rockets against Israeli towns and cities after Israel had heavily bombed civilian neighborhoods in Lebanon killing hundreds of civilians, many fleeing the Israeli onslaught.

First of all that last paragraph is misleading. True Israel did start the bombing before the Hizbullah started firing rockets, but they're forgetting that Hizbullah had kidnapped 3 Israeli soldiers. And the fact that Israel was targeting Hizbullah militia and weapons that were being stored in civilian buildings, leads more the illusion that Israel was the one who fired the first shot.

Now I want to get back to the original topic of the Arab refugees. The Arabs would like to claim that what the Jews say is a myth, that the Arabs were kicked out of Israel and that the Jews in Arab countries left them willingly to Israel.

Mitchel Bard explains that the cast majority of Arabs did leave Israel voluntarily, some were forced out by the Jews, but the root of this goes back even farther then 1948, farther than the current Zionist movement, it really goes back to when the Jews were expelled from the land of Israel by the Romans.

In response to the idea that the Jews should have exclusive rights to the Land of Israel because we had a kingdom here 2000 years ago, the respondee said that it was similar to the Roman or Greek Empire returning, simply because, at one time, they ruled certain areas of land.

60 years ago I might have agreed with that, but now, 60 years after the creation of the modern day state of Israel, I wouldn't. Simply because of the amount that the state has produced in the last 6 decades.

The media would like to portray us as an occupying entity that has the sole goal of displacing the Palestinian Arabs, and forcing them off their land.

The truth is, and this may be hard for people to imagine, we as Jews want to be productive in the world. We want to contribute.

And we have

Israel has, according to Dr. Yossi Olmert (yes you can figure out who that is) Israel has the the 18th highest GDP of any country in the world, which is astounding given it's relatively small population compared to the first 17 of only 7 million.

Add on top of the the obvious goal of the Jewish people (maybe not of the government, but of the Jewish people) of returning home to the land the G-d gave to us in the Torah.

This leads to another interesting point, and this relates to the modern, secular state of Israel.


The Arab Muslims say that they believe in the Torah. They believe that the Torah says that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

What they believe is that the Torah is a book of laws, given to a group of people (the Jewish people) to obey. Given to obey in the Land of Israel.

Now given that, this conflict can make some more sense. Maybe if the current state became a Torah government this problem would disappear.

The Leftists on the other hand, G-d bless them want to stop an injustice when the see one. And when they look at Israel they see an occupying force that is destroying the lives of Arabs who they believe are indigenous to the region.

But what they don't realize is the the computer that they're watching the Youtube video on is powered by an Intel that was made in Israel.

They don't realize that when their grandmother goes into surgery, they're using a camera so small, it can fit on the end of a needle to find exactly where to make their incision.

They don't realize that the technology on the cell phone that they use to call their friends to plan an anti-Israel with was invented in Israel.

Personally I think that if anyone cares about the "Plight of the Palestinians" they would not be advocating for a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Arabs live under absolute worse conditions, not because Israel wants to make suffer, but because the youth have been brainwashed that the fastest way to Heaven is to blow yourself up and take a Jew with you, and because all of the money that has been given by the International Community as aid to the Arabs is not even getting past the hands of the person receiving the check. The money is heading to their own personal bank accounts.

I feel bad for them, I really do. I just don't think that carving almost 1/2 of Israel's land away will solve anything except more deaths on both sides. Especially considering the relatively tiny space Israel has compared to its neighbors.

Now I just want to put Chomsky and Finklestein in their place. Just because a Jews says that Israel should give away land does not mean that it's the right thing. Especially a secular Jews has nothing to loss by the land giveaway. They're selling out their brothers because they do have a spark of Jewishness in them, they just have their compassion misplaced because they don't have the Torah guiding them, they only have the word of Man.

Let me know if you have anymore question.

How the Arabs Twist it

I must say that I was quite pleased when Congress passed a bill proposing that anytime the topic of the Arabs "Right of Return" comes up, they have to mention the Jews who were thrown out of Arab countries following the creation of the State of Israel.

This is how the Arabs twist it (WARNING: This is rather disturbing):



Compare this with this

A Banned Wedding

All right this is just weird and inappropriate. Imagine this: Girl goes to seminary in Israel, calls up her wealthy dad and tells him that she's found this incredible boy and wants to marry him. Father goes into a fit of rage because this isn't the type of boy he wants his daughter to marry, and goes on a rampage to break them up.
I'm not going to get into whether what the couple is doing or not, that's between them, but what really disgusted me was the reaction of the Charadim.
Now I try not to judge fellow Jews (except regarding Aliyah issues) but this really threw me. Maybe I'm not understanding the subtle nuances of what's going on, but the fact that this is going on should not be public knowledge. This should have been settled privatly between the families, they shouldn't have gone to Rabbi's who would post posters all over Mea Shearim telling people that this is wrong.
How is what they're doing wrong first of all? Let's say that they both are committed to Torah & Mizvot and want to build a strong Jewish household together, why should anyone want to stop them? There's no evidence in the article (after all it's Ynet, promoting liberal, secular values) that they are not planning to do this, and if they were going to "go off the derech" together it should have been settled privately. I don't think this is the case however, they could easily have had the wedding outside of Mea Shearim, but the fact that there are people outside protesting, waving signs, like the Netirei Karta do when they're protesting Israel, is frankly rather insulting.
Let's say this blows over, and the father accepts this. How do you think the kids are going to be treated. Knowing some of the things that are taught in some of these schools regarding tolerance, these kids are going to have to walk around with the label of a Mamzer.
This is, unfortunetly a sign of the times that we as the Jewish people are forgetting the core values of the Torah. Bait Hillel said that the Torah could be summed up with "Love your neighbor as yourself," and that's one of the core things that is missing from the Jewish people right now.

What We Can Learn from Bananna's-this is Cool

"If you consider yourself a Torah believing Jew, then you should AT LEAST be YEARNING to come to Israel. Maybe you feel you can't because of your fear, or your family obligations for elderly parents or lack of custody for your kids, but a Jew should at LEAST be YEARNING to make aliyah and move to Israel. You should at least be saying, "I'd LOVE to come to Israel, but alas, I cannot, I have to care for my sick, elderly mother who can't be moved". ...And if you are not yearning for Israel, if you are not dreaming of the day when you can come home, and instead are very happy in the cage you live in, there is something FUNDAMENTALLY wrong with your Judaism."
- Tamar Yonah (Israel National Radio)

China? Who's talking About China? An End of Days Scenario

All right, I'm going to take a different approach than I have in the past (for the sake of intellectual discussion). What if what we've always thought about the Middle East is wrong? What if we thought that the problem's centered around either America occupying some Arab country or that the fact that Israel exists the reason there's turmoil in the region.

It's funny, you can talk to some people and they'll tell you that the key to peace in the Middle East is for two things to happen.

1. America stops getting involved in the region
2. Israel gives the PA Arabs Yehuda & the Shomron.

If only those two things would happen then there would be peace in the Middle East.

But is that true?

Lets start with answer number 2, Israel giving up land. Let's say we forgot about all of the historical and religious significance that the Jews have to the land. Let's forget the security nightmare an act like that would cause. Let's just say that in the perfect world, Israel gave that land with the Arabs and the Arabs started to create a thriving functional society that didn't preach hate about non-Muslims, was productive in the world market and started some kind of export business or high-tech, and helped contribute to the world economy.

Let's imagine that.

OK, you can stop laughing. I'm going to show you why the solution to peace in the Middle East is actually the exact opposite what Westerners would think. Westerners think that the "conflict" is about land. Secular Israeli's think the conflict is about land. But even if the conflict was about land the solution is not to hand the land to them on a silver platter, in fact now that the Arabs have no sovereign control over the land it is going to be pretty much impossible to create a state for them there and for them to respect Israel.

One thing that most Westerners don't understand is that the Middle East is different from the countries that they live in. Namely being the different mentalities of the two ares.

I'll give you and example, an America tourist walks into an Arab shop anywhere in the Middle East, and picks up and item and asks the Arab shop keeper how much the item costs. The Arab says $50 even though the it really only costs $10. The Arab is not trying to swindle him, he's expecting the American to barter with him.

The tourist then say "OK" and pulls out the money and hands it to the Arab.

Imagine this happening in America, the shopkeeper would be thrilled!

The Arab however feels cheated.

This American turned him into a thief, and made him feel like he cheated the American. He doesn't want to have something handed to him, he wants to work for it.

And that is the underlining difference between America and the Middle East. America is all about equality and fairness (or at least claims to be) the Middle East is about respect. Even if acquiring that respect, causes him a monetary loss.

Success in America is usually defined by how much money a person has.

But someone who's bringing millions of dollars home every year, but also has a terrible marriage and troubled kids, would you define that as success.

It's kind of refreshing to not have to judged solely by how much money you make (one of the reasons I'm moving to Israel) and just by your actual worth as a person.

But I'm getting off topic, the point I want to make is that the solution to the Arab-Israel problem is not giving the Arabs land, it's doing what we did in 1967 and kicking there butts (but with love) and forcing them to grow up and stop whining like a two year and having everything handed to them on a silver platter. If they fire a rocket at us we firs 50 back at them, if they send a suicide bomber into a Jewish city, they will know that they will cause their families homes to be destroyed and their families imprisoned. They won't be going in with the knowledge that their families are going to receive $25,000 after they become a Shahid.

This then leads to another aspect of the conflict that would rock the world if it was revealed in the world media. The Muslims (not the extremists, but your normal everyday Muslim) believes that the Torah says that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews. They just don't consider Israeli's the Jews of the Torah.

If there was a spiritual revolution in Israel (like there is now and what has the current government so terrified) this conflict would end and we would have the potential to uniting with the Arabs and making a very strong Middle East.

And we're going to need a very strong Middle East to protect us from the next war.

What's the next war? Well I'm no prophet, and this is all hypothetical but let's look at the first issue that I presented above. America.

America has some serious problems.

Part of it has to do with the media, but a lot of it has to do with the government.

But if you think about media for a minute, why would it make headline news out of Michael Jackson molesting 12 year old boys when Russia and China were signing major arms agreements? Wouldn't it be a little bit more pressing to give out the information from two possibly lethal enemies, who, most likely are going to use this new agreement against the interests of the US.

But let's imagine, just imagine, that the conflict in the Middle East was solved. Let's say all of the religious Jews of America moved to Israel and there was a spiritual revolution that took place in the state, a revolution that changed the very nature of the state to be a religious, Torah government. Add that to every single Arab in the Middle East knowing that if one rocket attack was taken against Israel, the location that the attack came from would be flattened. Add on top of that the US getting out of the Middle East and letting the area stabilize by itself.

Then imagine that what resulted from this was a real peace. Not a peace that involved "good will gestures" but a peace that fit into the mold of the Middle East, but would be different from any peace that had ever taken place in the region before. A region that has forever been at the control of a foreign entity whose main goal was to conquer as much land as possible, now under the influence, not from an land depleting occupier, but by the inhabitants the land was originally made for. Not by an entity with a goal ton conquer, but a nation that has the goal of being a light unto the nations, and being able to bring the true light of G-d into the world and really unite the people of this world.

Imagine that.

Now imagine that except the only people who will be effected are the people of the Middle East.

Not the people in the Far East.

The people of the far East are more powerful than the people of the West. They are more focused and determined and hate people of faith.

They want to dominate the world.

America is too weak. The European countries are too weak.

They will fall fast.

Now the question is the Middle East.

Imagine if the War of Gog and Magog has nothing to do with battle between people of faith. What if it's a battle of faith, the people of G-d vs the atheists.

What if instead of having a divided Middle East, the Jews and the Arabs could unite as cousins and fight a real threat and fight in the name of G-d.

All of this is highly hypothetical of course, but what if that's what it takes to bring the Jews of the world together, and end Arab hate?

Just a thought