Uh Oh - Here He Goes Again!

On many ocassions, we have emphasized that it is not enough to live in the Holy Land, a Jew must live in the Holy Land in a holy fashion. This means living a life devoted to Torah and guarding the Covenant of sexual purity, the foundation of the Jewish Nation. 

In this Shabbat's Torah portion of "Chaya Sarah," there is an interesting verse. "And Avraham said to the eldest servant of his house, 'Put I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and I will make thee swear by the L-rd, the G-d of Heaven and the G-d of the earth, that thou shall not take a wife to my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but thou shall go to my birthplace, and to my kindred, and take a wife to my son Yitzhak'" (Bereshit, 24:2-4).

Why did Avraham have his servant place his hand under his thigh if he wanted him to take a holy oath? The term "thigh" is a polite way of referring to the place of the Brit. Why here of all places? Didn't Avraham have a Bible or some other holy object in his tent to give the oath a sacred meaning? Rashi explains that the place of the Brit is holy, exactly like a Torah scroll, mezuzah, or tefillin. In our book, "Secret of the Brit," we have endeavored to explain the esoteric understandings safeguarding the Brit, and the importance of striving for sanctity in marital relations. The revered Kabbalist, Rabbi Eliahu Leon Levi, stresses that guarding the holiness of our sexual lives is the key to our personal health and happiness, and the key to our secure and prosperous national life in Eretz Yisrael. 

The Kabbalist, Rabbi Eliahu Leon Levi

People who agree with my blogs on the need for Jews to live in Eretz Yisrael are encouraged to take these words with the same seriousness and make Shmirat HaBrit an integral part of their lives. More than political demonstrations and protests, guarding the Covenant will insure our continued settlement in all of the far and wide borders of Eretz Yisrael.  

Shabbat Shalom. 

Trick or Treat?

Omens, Spirits, Goblins, and Witches

Halloween is also called All Hallows' Eve, because, for the gentiles, it is a hallowed evening, the eve of All Saints' Day, a day which honors all Christian saints. The Encyclopedia Britannica explains that in ancient Britain and Ireland, the Festival of Halloween was a also celebration of the end of the fertile period of the Celtic goddess Eiseria. It is said that when Eiseria reaches the end of her fertile cycle the worlds of the dead and the living intertwine. This supposedly happens on October 31. Masks are worn to show respect for the Goddess Eiseria who, like most Celtic gods, does not wish to be seen by human eyes.

This date was also New Year’s Eve in both Celtic and Anglo-Saxon times, and was the occasion for one of the ancient fire festivals when huge bonfires were set on hilltops to frighten away evil spirits. The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on this day, and the festival acquired sinister significance, with ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, black cats, fairies, and demons of all kinds said to be roaming about. It was the time to placate the supernatural powers controlling the processes of nature. In addition, Halloween was thought to be the most favorable time for divinations concerning marriage, luck, health, and death. It was the only day on which the help of the devil was invoked for such purposes. These pagan observances also influenced the Christian festival of All Hallows' Eve, celebrated on the same date.

The Devil Made Me Do It!

Jewish Law states: “A Jew should not follow the customs of the gentiles, nor imitate them in dress, or in their way of trimming their hair, as it says, ‘You shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I cast out before you’ (Lev. 20:23), and ‘Neither shall you walk in their statutes’ (Lev. 18:3). These verses all refer to one and the same matter of not imitating them. A Jew, on the contrary, should be distinguished from them and recognizable by the way he dresses, and in his other activities, just as he is distinguished from them in his knowledge and his beliefs, as it is said, ‘I have set you apart from the peoples’ (Lev. 20:26).” (See, Rambam, Laws Regarding Idol Worship and the Ordinances of the Gentiles, 11:1).

When it comes to the question whether Jews can take part in gentile holidays, the halachic discussion differs between clearly religious holidays like Xmas, which are forbidden, and purely secular holidays like Labor Day, which are permissible. Halloween’s religious origins and pagan history place it in the category of gentile holidays that are forbidden to celebrate. Though Halloween in America has been secularized and commercialized to the point where it is now a frivolous time of costumes, candy, and pranks, it is still celebrated in places like Scotland and Ireland as a Celtic festival of the spirits, and in other places as a holiday honoring the Christian saints. Therefore “Trick or Treating” is a no-no for Jewish children.

The law prohibiting our participation in gentile holidays and customs comes to protect our special Jewish holiness and cultural distinction. If you allow your kids to participate in the pagan rites of a gentile culture, they will grow up with pumpkin heads instead of Jewish heads.

Pumpkin Head

On the other hand, if you try to safeguard our distinction as Jews and not let your children go “Trick or Treating” with all the other kids in the neighborhood , they will grow up hating both you and Judaism for turning them into freaks in the eyes of their friends. Either way, as a parent, you lose.

What’s the solution? Move to Israel. The only place you will see a pumpkin here is in the supermarket (a small yellow one that looks more like a squash). If you truly love your children and don’t want them growing up with pumpkin heads, then the only solution is to bring them to Israel where they will grow up like Jews without hating both you and the Torah.

To illustrate, today my nine-year old son went on a class trip to Hevron in honor of  this Shabbat’s Torah portion, “Chaya Sarah,” which recounts how our forefather, Avraham, purchased the Cave of the Machplah and the surrounding field for a burial site for his family. Since Hevron is the City of our Forefathers, fathers were invited to come along. So while Jewish kids in the Diaspora were trying on their Goblin and Spiderman Halloween costumes, my son was treated to an educational tour of Hevron, the world’s oldest Jewish city.

In the Footsteps of the Patriarchs

Who is more likely to grow up with a Jewish head – the Jewish kids in the Diaspora who go “trick or treating” with the goyim, or the Israeli kids who spend the day learning about their Jewish forefathers and praying in the Cave of the Patriarchs?  

"What's Halloween?"

If there is any doubt in your mind, it may be because you went “trick or treating” yourself.

"Blessed art thou O L-rd, shield of Avraham."

Like Father Like Son

To Go Up or To Go Down

Today is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Meir Kahane, towering prophet of our time, fearless speaker of truth, champion of the Torah, loving husband and father, may Hashem avenge his murder by an Arab terrorist in New York.

Over the past year, we have tried to make clear the great imperative of aliyah if Diaspora Jewry hopes to escape destruction. In memory of Rabbi Kahane, we will turn this blog over to him and let his impassioned words ring out loud and clear in our ears.

[This article, condensed for this blog, appeared in 1976, decades before the founding of Nefesh B’ Nefesh. It is part of a soon-to-be-published collection of Rabbi Kahane’s essays and articles].

TO GO UP OR TO GO DOWN

Over the past few years I have had the dubious honor of being barred from speaking at the World Zionist Congress, the Brussels Conference on Soviet Jewry, many major Jewish conventions, and untold numbers of synagogues. The fear of hearing painful, controversial and unsettling views, is endemic among tiny people.
Even the youth, those who should, by any standard, be the idealists are massive disappointments. The painful fact is that there is only a pitifully small number of Jewish youth going on aliyah.

 
The insecurity and fear that rule the inner recesses of such Jews make them desperately frightened of hearing Jewish truths that will shake the very foundations of their philosophies and existence, and that will make them question the essence of their reason for being. And that is why so many of them will hear Arabs rather than JDL; enemies of Israel, but not Kahane. That — and the worst of all the fears that beset the leaders of the Jewish Establishment, both the gentilized Jews of America and the Hebrew-speaking gentiles of Israel: the fear that my ideas and words may open the eyes of the Jewish masses and persuade them that their present leaders guide the nation to disaster.

That is why there are such frantic efforts to bar me from speaking, to see that my books are not advertised or carried by bookstores, to have my column barred. And that is why I will be barred again in Brussels in February and that is why there was such intense pressure by Jewish Agency officials to force the leaders of the Association of Americans and Canadians for Aliyah (AACA) to withdraw their invitation to have me speak at their convention on February 7. It is to the AACA’s credit that they refused to be pressured.

I have a special desire to speak to this group which could grow from the essentially packing-and-crating organization that the Israeli government has made of it, into a true aliyah movement, which can save the lives and futures of countless American and Canadian Jews. I want so much to speak to this group and to challenge it to greatness, to seek independence for itself so that it can finally do what no one else does for the Jewish people.

Sanctification of G-d

So few, even among the so-called religious American Jews and their leaders, understand or are willing to see the meaning of the era in which we live and its categorical imperatives: the end of the era of Hillul Hashem (desecration of the L-rd’s Name) and the beginning of that of Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of the L-rd’s Name). We are tiny people and an orphaned generation, and we do not see and do not wish to see the incredible Divine ordaining of the beginning of the Redemption that has taken place before our very eyes. The rise of the Jewish State from the ashes of Auschwitz and from the terror of the long Exile is a decree of the L-rd. It is His first sign of the dawn at the end of the long night of suffering. The State is the sign of Jewish strength and restoration of glory which is the proof of the greatness and omnipotence of the Jewish G-d. It is the reply to those who mocked the Jews and their G-d, asking: “Jews, where is your G-d?” It is the end to the impotence of the Jew and his Maker. It is the beginning of the era of Divine Presence whereby His power and majesty will be manifested to all so that they “know His Name.”

The Exile, the very antithesis of the glory, the very symbol of Jewish weakness and shame, is ending and it must end. Those Jews who refuse to leave it and who perpetuate it, participate daily in the humiliation and desecration of the holy Name. They humiliate G-d, and more — they are men of little faith. They, even the religious, even those who build their “Netanyas in New York,” their “young, modern, dynamic Orthodox Jewish communities” in the suburbs, their “exclusive, for Bnei Torah only,” idolatry on Staten Island. They are men who build their Golden Calves and worship them, men of little faith even though they don two pairs of tefillin daily. Their corruption of Judaism, their remaining in the Exile will lead to their drowning in a flood of gentile fire as the Exile is destroyed.

And fire rained down from Heaven

There is no faith, and that is the essence of the tragedy. The average Jew is sublimely ignorant, comfortably materialistic, stupendously blind, a man utterly lacking in understanding and faith. The practitioner of ritual, the ostensibly “religious Jew,” defies the injunction to live in the Land of Israel and embraces the pagan and unholy earth of Exile. And even the youth, those who should, by any standard, be the idealists are massive disappointments. The painful fact is that there is only a pitifully small number of Jewish youth going on aliyah. Our youth, too, are contaminated with lack of idealism; they too are denizens of fleshpots, and their pro forma attacks on the Establishment sound more than hypocritical alongside their own abysmal failure to emigrate. Little faith, a generation of little faith.

Impotence of the Diaspora Jew

These are axioms that I wish to lay out before the AACA delegates and much more. For I bear not only problems but solutions — Jewish solutions. Because they and the American Jewish community must understand that aliyah means “to go up” and that they have only one of two choices. Either the American Jew will go up to the land or he will go down to destruction.

California Jews

Towering Inferno

NEW YORK (JTA) -- "I worked all my life for this house," Daniel Okonsky said in a call from his cell phone on Tuesday afternoon. "I was able to build it, to maintain it -- and now there is nothing."

"Why G-d, why?"

Okonsky was speaking from the Downtown Sheraton in San Diego, where he has been staying with his family since they evacuated their home Sunday at 3:30 a.m. in the face of wildfires that have ravaged southern California.
When he returned to his home Monday, there was nothing left.

He has notified his insurance company of the loss, but is not sure what will happen next. "I have never lived through something like this," he said. "I have no procedure to follow. It's not something you expect every day. You have a house where you raise a family and now there is nothing left."

In other news affecting the Jewish community, more than 20 Chabad centers in Southern California have been evacuated due to the raging fires around the region, said Rabbi Chaim Cunin, spokesman for the West Coast Chabad [end of news article].

Dear Daniel, Rabbi Cunin, and the Jews of California  – the people of Israel are with you in your sorrow. But as you contemplate the task of rebuilding, why waste your time rebuilding your lives in exile. Your tragedy will only happen again. Whether by fire, or earthquake, or persecution, or assimilation, the future of Diaspora Jewry is doomed. What point is there in rebuilding your houses and shuls in galut when you can build new homes and Chabad houses in Israel?
Why be satisfied with being a watcher on TV, on the other side of the world, when you can become a player down on the field in the Superbowl of our ongoing Redemption?

Just like a Chinaman belongs in China, and an Eskimo belongs in Alaska, a Jew belongs in Israel. Nowhere is South California, or Toronto, or Antwerpen mentioned in the Torah. Hashem told Avraham to go to Israel. He promised the Land to Yitzhak andYaacov. Our Forefathers lived there even though there were idol worshipping enemies in the Land. After a harsh exile in Egypt, Hashem told Moshe to bring the Jews home to Israel. All of the Torah comes to teach us that a Jew is to make the Land of Israel his home.

Brothers and sisters, don’t be like the Jews who wanted to remain in Egypt, slaves to a foreign culture, dreaming to be accepted by idol worshippers and engage in their pagan perversions. Remember what happened to them. They died in the plague of darkness, the darkness of swimming pools, and Volvos, and Jewish Federations.

Brothers and sisters, Judaism is more than gefilta fish and getting drunk at the weekly sumptuous Sabbath Kiddush, and going to the latest movie on Saturday night. Judaism is building a holy nation in the Land that G-d bestowed to the Jews. The choice is before you. You can rebuild your private houses and reconstruct your private swimming pools and private home Jacuzzis and gyms, or you can dedicate your lives to helping to rebuild the Jewish Nation in the Jewish Land and thus become an active player in the process of Redemption that is taking place across the sea. Why read about it altruistically on Arutz 7 when you can take an active part yourselves?

"Oh no, not the swimming pool too!"

Yes, there are dangers in Israel too. There were dangers when Hashem told Avraham to move here. There were dangers when Hashem commanded Moshe and Joshua to bring the Jews to Israel out of their bondage in Egypt, the California of that time.

Hashem tests us through dangers. He tests our faith in Him and our love for Him through the dangers we have to overcome, and through the sacrifices we have to make on His behalf. This is how he builds us into being His people. He doesn’t want one-day-a-week Jews, lovers of California six days a week, and lovers of Hashem on Shabbat. He wants us to love Him completely, with all of our hearts, with all of our souls, with all of our might, even more than we love our mansions, and swimming pools, and Cadillacs and shiksas. It isn’t enough to say, “In G-d we trust,” by stockpiling dollars in the bank and buying some Israel bonds. G-d wants us to trust in Him more than we trust in the dollar.

In G-d We Trust

So to all of the homeless David’s and Chabad rabbis, wherever you may be, when you gaze at the ruins of your exile dreams, be happy. The exile isn’t supposed to last forever. Step out of the darkness and see the light. Your future and the future of all the Jewish People is here, in Israel, just like in the days of our forefathers.

Bye Bye California

Why be satisfied with being a watcher on TV, on the other side of the world, when you can become a player down on the field in the Superbowl of our ongoing Redemption?

Sodom, California

A reader commented, “OK, let’s say the California fires are a warning to the Jews to move to Israel, buy why should non-Jews have to suffer too?”

Fire from the L-rd

Is it coincidental that this week’s Torah portion tells the story of Sodom and Gemorah? Once upon a time, I lived in Southern California, and that’s exactly what it is. It is a land of narcissism, perverted sex, and greed. The iron gates, electric fences, and prowling guard dogs surrounded everybody’s mansion send out the clear message to strangers – “KEEP OUT!” Just like in residents of Sodom.

"And he looked toward Sodom and Amora and behold the smoke of the country went up like the smoke of a furnace."

In case you have forgotten, the word sodomy comes from Sodom. That’s what the men of Sodom wanted to do to the angels who came to visit Lot. I don’t know what the streets are like now, but in my days, the gays competed with the hookers to tempt the drivers of passing cars.

And fire rained down from Heaven

“Then the L-rd rained down upon Sodom and Gemorah brimstone and fire from the L-rd out of Heaven.”

Just last week, California’s governor, the son of a Nazi, signed a new law making restrooms in schools co-ed. Here’s a clip from a WorldNetDaily.com news report dated October 13, 2007:

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
'Mom' and 'Dad' banished by California.
Schwarzenegger signs law outlawing terms perceived as negative to 'gays'.

The terms "Mom and Dad" as well as "husband and wife" effectively have been banned from California schools under a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who with his signature also ordered public schools to allow boys to use girls restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa, if they choose.

"We are shocked and appalled that the governor has blatantly attacked traditional family values in California," said Karen England.  “Gov. Schwarzenegger has told parents that their values are irrelevant. Many parents will have no choice but to pull their children out of the public schools that have now become sexualized indoctrination centers."
"Shame on Schwarzenegger and the Democrat politicians for ensuring that every California school becomes a homosexual-bisexual-transsexual indoctrination center," she said.  [End of news clip.]  

Brimstone

While the Jewish People have unique laws safeguarding the holiness of their marital lives, non-Jews also are forbidden to engage in sexual brazenness and perversion under the seven commandments of Bnei Noach.

Lot's Wife

Like our forefather, Avraham, we pray that Hashem will show mercy and spare California for the sake of the righteous people who live there. And we pray that the Jews will wake up and stop trying to be just as American and California Cool as the goyim, and hurry home to the Holy Land that awaits them.

Shabbat Shalom