Haredi Anti-Army/Draft Riots

I have absolutely no tolerance nor understanding for any anti-draft/IDF actions/riots etc here in Israel or any place else. The State of Israel is under constant threat and periodic attacks. From the Jewish point of view, that makes serving in the IDF a great mitzvah, Torah commandment, because it saves lives.

Prior to the Israeli Declaration of Independence, while we found ourselves defending ourselves against the Arabs and British, the "underground" forces, Haganah, Palmach, Etzel and Lechi had a complete cross-section of volunteers of all types of Jews in the Land of Israel. That included secular, traditional, religious and hareidi. 

In the early days of the State of Israel, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion made an agreement with the hareidim that they could get a deferment for full-time yeshiva students and religious women. The yeshiva students were expected to support the state by their prayers and learning. Of course, many of us believe that Ben-Gurion was "generous" in granting a deferment, because he wanted to isolate the then small number of hareidim from the rest of the population. He didn't want religious interference or influence in the IDF.

While there has been great improvement and changes in the IDF for strictly religious soldiers, certain  hareidi factions have become dangerously and violently more intolerant of the army and soldiers. Jerusalem has been plagued by frequent violent anti-draft riots. Last week, I found myself waiting for buses that couldn't come to the stop, because they had been rerouted. There was no notification. Public transportation and many main thoroughfares were closed or rerouted when possible.

Ordinary citizens, young and old, religious and secular have suffered physically due to travel difficulties. This is all because young, fit hareidi men are wasting their energy rioting, rather than serving the Jewish People, rather than doing mitzvot, Torah Commandments.

They claim that their time in the Batei Midrash, Study halls are too precious to waste in the IDF, but they have lots of time to riot, attack the police and endanger the health and welfare of innocent Jews. There is absolutely nothing to support their behavior in the Torah.

Senior citizens touring the Underground Museum, Russian Compound, where Jewish fighters were held prisoners  by the British Mandate before the establishment of the State of Israel.

Portable Biblical Tabernacle, Mishkan,

Yesterday at our women's Shabbat Torah Class, we talked about the Mishkan, Tabernacle, which is the main topic of the Book of Vayikra,  Leviticus which we just finished reading. The neighbor who spoke to us started by reminding us that there isn't a clear chronology in the Bible. That means that events didn't happen in the order we read them.

A few years ago I studied Bamidbar, Numbers, in Matan, taught by Atara Snowbell, and  one of the important things she began with was to say that Vayikra and Bamidbar happened simultaneously. The books each cover different aspects of that time period.

Back to Vayikra and the Tabernacle. Yesterday we were reminded that the "Sin of the Golden Calf" occured right after the Jewish People escaped from Egypt, before the building of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle in the wilderness was to remedy the people's need for a place to worship, even before entering the Land of Israel. Of course, parallel to this was the "Sin of the Spies," when the people and tribal leaders voted that they weren't ready/capable of the challenges of entering the Promised Land and defeating those there.

In short, those two major sins, the "Golden Calf" and "the Spies" were the reasons why we not only had to wait forty years for a new generation to be ready to enter the Land, but we had a place to worship Gd, the Tabernacle as a central meeting point. Not only was the forty years a time for the twelve Jewish tribes of former slaves to become a People, but the early form of community Judaism developed then, too.

I photoshopped the Tabernacle onto the spot in Tel Shiloh, it is believed to have been in Biblical times.

Should The State of Israel Take Advice/Orders?

When I opened the computer tonight after Shabbat I saw this headline:

Europe criticizes Israel over legislation on terrorism

All I could think of was that the last thing the State of Israel should do is to pay attention to Europe's opinion. They are pro-Arab and anti-semitic.

And the United States isn't much better. Even the Jewish organizations don't know what's best for us. Caroline Glick's latest article is a must-read:

COLUMN ONE: ACHIEVING AIPAC’S MISSION

AIPAC’s mission to cultivate and maintain bipartisan support for Israel in the United States is an important mission. Unfortunately, the messages AIPAC’s leaders delivered during the organization’s annual policy convention this week in Washington indicate that they are at a loss for how to achieve their mission in the contentious political environment now prevalent in post- Obama America.

Their befuddlement is not surprising. For the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, AIPAC’s leaders showed a consistent inability to understand the challenges they faced. And since they were unable to understand how or why the Obama administration was undermining AIPAC, they couldn’t protect AIPAC or advance its mission during his tenure in office.

At this week’s AIPAC convention, the message emanating from the speeches AIPAC’s senior leadership delivered was that they still don’t get what happened.

And largely as a consequence, they do not understand the challenges they face as an organization moving forward. And again, since they don’t understand what happened, or what is happening, they are incapable of meeting today’s challenges to AIPAC’s mission in a constructive way... Click for complete article

Israeli Political/PM Election System Made "Simple"

Last night I caught a few seconds of the TV news from which I heard Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu saying that unless his coalition partners insist otherwise, he plans on having them serve out their full term. That would give them another year and a half in government.

The Israeli Electoral System makes polling very risky. That's because you vote for a political party, and its list of potential Knesset Members. The head of the party which, post-elections, can form a coalition becomes Prime Minister. That's one of the reasons why in recent elections many more people end up voting Likud than voting for the party they had indicated for the poll, if asked.

You may like the ideology/platform of a certain party, but its leader seems totally incompetent as potential Prime Minister. So, a certain percentage of voters find themselves taking the Likud ballot, even though it's not their prefered party.

Here I am voting in the 2015 Knesset Elections

This trend can be seen very easily if you read the polls. Taken from Jeremy's site.

Panels conducted a poll that was broadcast by Walla News on March 8 2018.

Current Knesset seats in [brackets]

30 [30] Likud

Who is most suited to be Prime Minister?

39% Netanyahu, 34% Don’t know/Other, 16% Lapid, 11% Gabbai

Can Netanyahu fulfill his job as Prime Minister?

52% Yes, 42% No, 6% Don’t know

A poll, like this, showing thirty 30 seats, out of the one hundred and twenty 120, for Likud means that only one quarter, 25% of the voters are thinking of voting Likud. But in that very same poll, you see that 39% of those polls see Netanyahu as "most suited to be Prime Minister," and his runner-up is "34% Don’t know/Other."

And please don't claim that "voting districts" will make the system easier. That would be a totally hellish nightmare. Have you ever heard of GERRYMANDERING?

Life in Israel: Once an Oleh, Always an Oleh?

The other evening I joined a few dozen olim, ascendants/immigrants to Israel, mostly from English-speaking countries, some recently arrived and others here for about half a century. Actually, at my table we probably had the highest sum total of years in Israel. One friend has already celebrated fifty years since her aliyah. My half century is just a year and a half from now, and my other friend came not all that long after I did. Some of the audience only made aliyah after retiring in order to fully enjoy their freedom from work and to fulfill the dream of living in the Jewish State of Israel, the Land of the Jewish People.

Benji Lovitt, Joel Haber, Hani Skutch and Liami Lawrence entertaining Anglos of South Jerusalem.

About a hundred years ago, my grandparents, great-grandparents and others, who had escaped eastern Europe and moved to the United States had been active in landsmanshaft, clubs/societies of those who came from the same towns, cities or areas. My father's parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and even some cousins are buried in the Neshelsk Cemetery in New York. Nasielsk, Poland, near Warsaw was the city they came from. And I remember hearing how excited my two grandmothers were to discover that they were both from the same city in Belarus, Rogotshov. My father's mother confirmed this in a way, when she told me that my coloring is like my other grandmother. She remembered seeing her in Rogatshov as a young woman.

All of the comedians at the event based their routines on the immigrant experience, which is natural, since we all have it in common. My friends and I see a big difference between our aliyot to Israel way back when and that of many of the newcomers, but we still all laughed at the jokes. I guess that's because you do need a good healthy sense of humor to adjust to the differences we've encountered and enjoy our lives. Baruch Hashem, Bless the Lord, we are so happy we came to Israel to live and just can't imagine living anyplace else!

PragerU So True

PragerU has some of the wisest videos and ideas on the internet/youtube. So I highly recommend signing up or at least checking it out.

Honestly, Israel Doesn't Need America to Survive

I have problems with the whole concept that "We need to know America has our back," Minister of Education Naftali Bennett.



Israel's greatest victories were when there was no interference/support by any foreign country, even the United States of America. The Israeli War of Independence when we had to defend ourselves against British backed Arab troops/armies and the 1967 Six Days War when Soviet backed Arab armies, tacitly supported by the United Nations and innumerable foreign countries were miraculous victories. All logic and military experts had the State of Israel written off as defeated. We had no human or diplomatic allies.

Prayers went to Gd, and Gd wanted us to win. If we depend on humans, we may lose. That is what almost happened in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War. The Nixon-Kissinger agenda was to make the USA the real power in the Middle East. It's only thanks to Gd and Jewish People that they failed.

The best response of the State of Israel to supporters like Trump and Pence is a simple "thank you for doing what is right in the eyes of Gd."

Israeli Politics, Deja Vu

There's a very simple reason I haven't been blogging much about Israeli politics. It is getting boring and tedious. Jeremy has posted two recent polls, which show rather predictable trends. Both polls use the same basic number of respondents, just under six hundred 600. I'd consider the margin of error rather large, and since no new "savior" has appeared on the scene... Also, even though the media and police are doing all they can to find something corrupt/jailable about Prime Minister Netanyahu, he still comes out #1 in the question:

"Who is the most suited to be Prime Minister?"

So, I will copy/paste the two polls and follow it with a bit of my commentary:

Poll #1: Walla

Panels conducted a poll of 589 people that was broadcast by Walla News on March 1 2018.

Current Knesset seats in [brackets]

29 [30] Likud
23 [11] Yesh Atid
13 [24] Zionist Union
11 [08] Bayit Yehudi
10 [13] The Joint (Arab) List
08 [10] Kulanu
08 [06] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
08 [05] Meretz
06 [06] Yisrael Beitenu
04 [07] Shas (under threshold)
00 [–-] Yachad, Yaalon, Zehut (as other) under threshold

66 [67] Current Right-Religious Coalition
54 [53] Current Center-Left-Arab Opposition

Who is the most suited to be Prime Minister?

37% Netanyahu, 20% Lapid, 19% None, 9% Gabbai, 8% Bennett, 5% Kahlon, 2% Liberman

Poll #2: Yisrael Hayom

Geocartography conducted a poll of 587 people that was published by Yisrael Hayom on March 2 2018.

Current Knesset seats in [brackets]

36 [30] Likud
23 [11] Yesh Atid
11 [08] Bayit Yehudi
10 [24] Zionist Union
10 [13] The Joint (Arab) List
10 [06] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
06 [05] Meretz
05 [10] Kulanu
05 [06] Yisrael Beitenu
04 [07] Shas (under threshold)
00 [–-] Yachad, Yaalon, Zehut (as other) under threshold

71 [67] Current Right-Religious Coalition
49 [53] Current Center-Left-Arab Opposition

One thing for sure is that the Likud will end up getting some of the Bayit Yehudi votes. It happens every time. In the final day before elections, Bibi will send out urgent announcements/warnings claiming falsely that "the Likud must have more MKs to form a coalition. If people vote for Bayit Yehudi, then X will be able to form a coalition instead." Of course, he omits the simple fact that it's the sum total needed to form a government, and that the smaller he can make Bayit Yehudi the more power he'll have over it. If Bayit Yehudi is larger, then Bibi will have to give in to its coalition demands.

If you look at the first poll, you'll see that Lapid and "none of the above" are almost tied for 2nd 3rd place. But all they have is really just over half the support and trust that Bibi has. And Bibi is constantly the butt/target of police and media accusations of corruption. After all the efforts the police have made to find something to charge Netanyahu with, they're looking rather desperate and even corrupt, if you follow. I suggest reading Caroline Glick's recent article, Defending the rule of law.

Looking at another section of both the polls is very interesting. Both polls show Shas as just under the minimum threshold to be represented in the Knesset, and both show an increase in the Yahadut Hatorah (UTJ.) My guess is that as the chareidi-style sephardim mature into second generation, they are more comfortable in chareidi society and now look at and vote as in the "big picture," as chareidim, rather than sephardim.

One last thing. If you're ever invited to the Prime Minister's Residence, don't bring a consumable "house gift," such as cake, candy, wine or cigars. You may be charged with bribery...

Disillusions, A Book Review

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer, The Real New World Order by Yemima Bakol manages to be both a very serious philosophical and theological book mostly about Judaism, but light, fun and easy reading, too. Now, that is a very amazing accomplishment. It certainly helps that it's short, less than two hundred 200 pages, and divided into chapters.

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order is a fresh, even fun (and quirky!) approach to learning Torah, equally for the ben-Torah as for the ba’al teshuva. While the story’s framework is essentially an answer to two international bestsellers, Richard Bach’s 1977 Illusions and Dr. Stephen Hawking’s 1988 A Brief History of Time, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order is an easy-flowing, novel-form narrative that brings together most of the central spiritual concepts of Torah. Restaging and recasting Bach’s two characters as Aryeh Lieb and Dan Shimon, though not requiring the reader to have read either addressed books, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer & The Real New World Order redefines the concept of illusions, as are other spiritual precepts, but according to Torah. The characters embark on a mind-stretching, mental and spiritual challenge that is uplifting and inspirational, as they explore and define the “navigational” tools Torah gives us to raise our consciousness and direct us toward the upcoming Geula, being Hashem’s New World Order...

Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer is made up of a series of connected events and conversations about life and faith and Gd. Normally I don't read any philosophy, but this book wasn't hard to get into. All that was missing was a glossary, since many of the words and terms would be incompressible for its potential readership. Even though I have been living a Torah observant life for over half a century, I'm still very sensitive to the differences in everyday language, or I try to be. Sometimes we say things that are perfectly clear to us in the Torah observant World and forget that the word usage makes no sense to others.

On the whole, Disillusions: A Spiritual GPS For the Journeyer, The Real New World Order is a delightful book and can be enjoyed on many levels. Excerpts of Yemima Bakol's book can also be used to stimulate discussion.

• Paperback: 182 pages
• Publisher: Targum Press, Incorporated; 1 edition (November 13, 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568716435
• ISBN-13: 978-1568716435
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

3 1/2 Weeks to Pesach

It seems like Passover is always on my mind. I look at my house and can't imagine how I'm going to get it ready. OK, yes, I certainly know the drill. Not every room really needs to be considering as harboring hidden chametz. We don't eat chametz all over the house. But since my house is a real mess, I do need to clean up, at least once a year.

Here's the freezer. We are trying to empty it. We ate some defrosted rolls for our Shushan Purim Seudah, festive meal. I gave my daughter all the flour a couple of weeks ago. She bakes; I don't. I wonder what treasures I will find while trying to empty it.

It may sound funny to hear this, but truth is that getting the kitchen ready for Passover is easier than cleaning the rest of the house. We have too much unnecessary unused junk including books. I'm in charge of the kitchen, and I've been getting rid of things, old useless pots, a bunch of my books and cd's. One of my children had needed tablecloths, so I gave him a nice supply. It's shocking how many I don't use at all. 

Anyone who wants any of the books here can just take them. I've gotten rid of quite a few. In the process of going over them I found old family recipes my kids had been hoping to discover. So I sent over all the files.

I've been having trouble with my hip, so I won't be able to do the usual cleaning in the other rooms. But I'll try to throw more things out, Gd willing. In a sense, that's what chametz is. The increase in possessions we have but don't need is very much like how yeast makes the dough rise. We shouldn't be slaves to our possessions. We need to unshackle ourselves and be free.

Purim: Mordechai and Esther, The Rebel and The "Sleeper"

One of the great things about the Hebrew language is that pretty much every single combination of two or three letters can be understood as words.

Waiting to hear the Megilla, the Scroll of Esther

Chaz"al, our sages, have been debating and discussing the meanings of the two most crucial names in Megillat Ester, Mordechai and Esther. Most claim that neither are actual Jewish/Hebrew names. Maybe it's a bit chutzpadik of me to add my two cents 2¢ to the discussion, but very learned teachers and friends do respect my opinions, so here goes:

Megillat Ester, Chapter 2, Verse 7זוַיְהִ֨י אֹמֵ֜ן אֶת־הֲדַסָּ֗ה הִ֤יא אֶסְתֵּר֙ Hadassah, that is Esther

I agree with those who say that the name Esther/Ester is Hebrew/Jewish, not a version of "star." It is derived from the Hebrew linguistic root  סתר, s, t, r, which means hide. In the megillah narrative, Esther is planted as a spy, a "sleeper," by her uncle Mordechai. In the line in which she is introduced to us, I don't think that the הדס hadas, myrtle plant is used as a noun, name of the bush.  The myrtle is a hardy, evergreen plant. The fact that in the megillah, it's written with a ה "h" at the end to make it feminine, I consider it an adjective. So I'd translate it as:

"strong/hardy is Esther"

We have some myrtle in our garden, and they thrive in the most difficult of weather. Yes, that is very much like Esther who rose so magnificently to the challenges she was faced with.

Mordechai is considered by most as a totally non-Jewish, non-Hebrew name. It is even suggested that he is the Navi, Prophet Malachi. But I see a Hebrew name very clearly. Actually, so did Haman. Haman accused Mordechai of being rebellious. And what is the meaning for the first three Hebrew letters in מָרְדֳּכַ֛י Mordechai?

מרד mered, rebellion

Now go over Megillat Ester with this new information. What do you think?

Chag Purim Sameach!