History of the World - Part 1

Yesterday, at our Shabbat morning meal, we hosted three college-age boys who are visiting Israel for ten days on a Birthright trip.  We live near one of the Jerusalem hotels that Birthright uses, so we are often asked to give these young students an Israeli family experience. I’m not sure the experience they encounter at the Fishman house with the fanatic IsraelNN blogger is what the organizers of the program have in mind, but they keep sending them over, so I guess no one has complained.

Fishman at work

Like a anesthesiologist before an operation, I usually get them a little drunk at the beginning of the meal, so I can begin to work on transplanting their brains. It is always sad to see how growing up in America has lobotomized these innocent souls from a Jewish point of view. They don’t know Jewish history, they don’t know anything about Judaism, and usually they only know a few words of Hebrew, at best how to pronounce the letters without understanding what they read.

“Are they really Jewish?” my children ask in amazement, not understanding how a person can be Jewish and not even speak Hebrew.

“Yes, they are Jewish,” I answer, “But they grew up in America amongst the gentiles, and no one ever taught them anything about Judaism, so they think they are Americans like everyone else there.”   

At least they think that way when they first show up at our door. But after three hours of my wife’s delicious cooking, my ranting and raving, and a knock-out combination of Kiddush wine, beer, Arak, and a devastatingly potent etrog liquor from the Golan Heights, they stagger out of our home back to their hotel with a new way of looking at the world.

The main course - a new brain

The sad truth is that even when we host young religious visitors from America, the situation isn’t much different. True, they know more about Jewish history and Judaism than their non-religious counterparts, but their heads are still screwed on backwards nonetheless. They too believe that they are American, which reveals just how little they truly understand about Judaism.

Head on backwards

As we have stated many times, in many different ways, Judaism is more than eating gefilte fish and observing the Jewish holidays. True Judaism, the Judaism that Moses taught the Jewish People, is not merely a religion, but a NATIONALITY. The Torah is not just a list of precepts, but the CONSTITUTION of the JEWISH NATION. Judaism means building a Torah NATION in ERETZ YISRAEL.  Yes, the citizens of that Nation eat gefilte fish and observe the Jewish holidays, but they also are also charged with serving in the army, settling the Land, establishing a Jewish judicial system, building the Temple, keeping the agricultural laws indigenous to the Holy Land, in order to show the world that not only are individuals supposed to be moral and G-d fearing, but that entire NATIONS are supposed to serve G-d as well.

By definition, a Jew cannot be an American, or a Frenchmen, or a Mexican. He can possess a piece of paper, or an identity card, saying that he holds American citizenship, but that is just some superficial, bureaucratic paperwork. In his essence, a Jew is a “Bnei Yisrael,” a “Son of Israel.” He cannot be anything else. Yes, he can dress like a Frenchman, and talk like a Frenchman, and act like a Frenchman, but he isn’t a Frenchmen. He is a “Bnei Yisrael.”

What is a Jew? A Jew is part of a HOLY NATION. He has his own Jewish homeland. He has his own Jewish constitution and laws, that include his own form of religious government, and Jewish monarchy.  A Jew has a Divine Jewish destiny and calling that separates him from the other peoples of the world, just as the heart is separated from the other organs of the body, but serves as its power source and center.

A Jew may adopt, out of compulsion or habit, the dress and language of some other nation, but it is by nature a passing, temporary, costume during the exile, in the lands of his captivity, before he returns to his true self – as a “Son of Israel,” living a Torah life in the Land of Israel.

The problem is that we forget. We forget who we really are. After years and years in exile, we become so used to the foreign costumes and ways, we come to believe in the charade. Nobody informs us otherwise. Not our parents, not our teachers, not our rabbis.  

Until they innocently wander into the Fishman house for a Sabbath meal and POW! Fishman lets them have it smack in the face!  While the Birthright program has good intentions, their organizers and guides are afraid to tell the truth about being Jewish, lest parents get angry and the program gets canceled for turning kids on to being TOO Jewish and wanting to live in Israel.   

What do I tell them? I tell them about the history of the world according to Moses. And about Shavuot. But you’ll have to wait for tomorrow to hear the story yourselves. Meanwhile, get a few bottles of beer ready and some whiskey, or whatever it takes you to get in the mood to hear about the one and only Magical Mystery Tour of the Jews.

Thanks for a great meal, Mr. Fishman!

President Obama, Beware!

Tens of thousands turned out for the annual Jerusalem Day march through the streets of Jerusalem to the Kotel. Along the way, we stopped outside the American Consulate on Agron Street for a mass protest rally against US President Hussein Obama’s pronouncements about dividing the Land of Israel and Jerusalem, G-d forbid.

The flag of American waved on the roof of the Consulate building behind the protest bandstand, where a large sign proclaimed: GOD GAVE ISRAEL TO THE JEWS! After Meir Indor, head of the Algamor Terror Victims Association spoke of the dangers of any further territorial compromise, speakers read a Declaration of Allegiance to a united Eretz Yisrael and a united Jerusalem, in Hebrew, English, French, and Arabic.  As a oleh from America, I was asked to address President Obama in English. Holding a Bible in hand, I read out the following declaration:

Meir Indor, head of Almagor Terror Victims Association

                       JERUSALEM DAY DECLARATION

We have gathered here today, citizens of the State of Israel, to pledge our allegiance to Jerusalem, our eternal united capital, and to pledge allegiance to the entire Land of Israel. On this day which marks the reunification of Jerusalem, 42 years ago during the Six Day War, we proclaim to the President of the United States, to the people of the America, and to all the nations of the world, that we will not budge from our Holy City and our Holy Land!

In the words of our holy Rabbi, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, spoken to reporters on that very day, “We announce to all the world that by wondrous kindness of G-d, we have returned to our home, to our holy city. From this day forth, we shall never budge from here! We have come home!”

The L-rd God of Israel bought this day about. It was G-d who returned us to our Land and Holy City, and no man, no mortal of flesh and blood, however powerful he may be, Mr. President, can take these gifts of G-d from us.

Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish People, and the Jewish People alone. Jerusalem is the city of our kings, of King David and King Solomon, Jerusalem is the city of our HolyTemple, Jerusalem is the city of our prophets, the prophets of Israel, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.

In the words of Rabbi Kook, “We have come home through the wondrous acts of G-d. And the pinnacle of our homecoming is in our return to Jerusalem. All of the rulers of the world cannot alter this Divine historic fact. “The counsel of the L-rd endures forever!”

We make this declaration of loyalty to our beloved Holy City and to our G-d given homeland in affirmation of the word of G-d to the Jewish People as set down in the Bible, as it says: “And G-d appeared to Isaac and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the Land that I have given to you. Live in this Land, and I will be with you and I will bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all of these Lands, and I will keep the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.’”

This book is our deed to the Land of Israel. The Bible - the eternal word of G-d. G-d gave this Land to the Jewish People. Therefore, on Jerusalem Day, we call out to the President of United States, and to the people of America, and to all the believers in the Bible the world over, to stand by us, the people of Israel, in defending the unity of our ancient capital, Jerusalem, and the indivisible unity our ancient, Promised Land.

President Obama, in the words of a great American, Martin Luther King, we call out in a loud, united voice, “WE HAVE A DREAM!”

We have a dream, Mr. President – a dream of 2000 years, as the Psalmist King David proclaimed in the Bible: “When the L-rd brought the exiles back to Zion, we were like those who dream.” For 2000 years the Jewish People dreamed of returning to our Holy City, and now that G-d has brought us back, we will never budge from here! We will never budge from here! We will never budge from here!

Therefore, we, the People of Israel, call out in a loud united voice, just as King David proclaimed in the Book of Psalms: “If I forget Jerusalem, may I forget my right hand; may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I don’t remember and set Jerusalem above my greatest joy.”

On this joyous day, during our celebration of the unification of Jerusalem under Jewish sovereignty, we appeal to United States President Obama, and to our friends and allies, the American people, with a holy request and a warning. Help us fulfill the promise of G-d to the Jewish People. Stand by us in making Jerusalem the undivided capital of the Jewish People forever. For, as the Bible promises, whoever blesses the Jewish People will be blessed, and whoever wrongs them will be damned forever.

G-D GAVE ISRAEL TO THE JEWS! 

Jerusalem on My Mind

The book, “Mesilat Yesharim,” known as “The Path of the Just,” is universally recognized as a classic in Torah scholarship. Written by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato, who made aliyah in 1744, and whose yahrtzeit was honored yesterday, the text is studied in every yeshiva, whether Ashkenazic or Sefardi, whether Chabad, Satmar, Hasidei Gur, Breslov, or Rav Kook.

The Divinely inspired treatise sets down the ideal path in reaching the love and fear of Hashem. In its concise and clear style, it explains that there is a proper path and a mistaken path in serving Hashem. Using the teachings of our Sages, the text highlights the differences between the two paths by carefully guiding the reader up the ladder of character improvement and Torah observance.

Rabbi Yaacov Moshe Harlop, a close friend and student of Rabbi Kook, taught that in our generation of revival and redemption, students should begin by studying Chapter 19, which deals with Saintliness, in order to understand the true goal of Judaism.

An excerpt of the chapter is presented below from the Feldheim Edition, translated by Shraga Silverstein, available online at shechem.org.   

“It cannot be said that one who is motivated in his Divine service by a desire to purify his soul before his Creator so that he can come to sit in His presence together with the just and the Saintly, to see the pleasantness of God, to dwell within His Sanctuary and to receive the reward of the World to Come - it cannot be said that such a person is badly motivated. On the other hand, we cannot say that his motivation is a very good one either. For as long as a person is concerned with his own good, his Divine service is also performed for his own good.”

In other words, a Jew should not be solely concerned with his own personal journey in getting close to Hashem. There is a higher service of Hashem that should be the goal of the saintly.

“The true motivation, which is common to Saints, who have exerted themselves and persevered to acquire it, is to serve solely for the purpose of magnifying and extending the honor of the Lord Blessed Be He, may His praises be magnified and spread. One will serve for this end only after he has grown strong in love for the Blessed One, and longs and lusts for the magnification of His honor, and is pained by anything which detracts from it. He will hope that he is at least doing his part towards magnifying the honor of the Blessed One and he will wish that all others possessed this aspiration. The shortcomings of others in this respect will pain and grieve him, not to speak of his own unintentional and accidental lapses and those resulting from his natural weakness, which makes it difficult for him to constantly protect himself against sin, as it is stated (Ecclesiastes 7:20), ‘A man is not righteous in the land, who will do good and not sin.’”

In other words, the goal of the true saint should not be to amass as many private “mitzvah points” for himself that he can in this world, but to magnify the honor of Hashem. The shortcomings of others in this regard should cause him actual pain.

“The Saintly attitude we are discussing has been set forth in “Tanna d'bei Eiiyahu” (Chapter 4): ‘Every Sage in Israel who possesses the words of Torah according to their true significance and grieves for the honor of the Holy One Blessed be He, and for the honor of Israel all his days, and lusts and feels pain for the honor of Jerusalem and of the Temple, and for the swift flowering of salvation and the ingathering of the exiles, attains to the infusion of the Divine spirit in his words...’”

Notice that there are two types of Sages - those “who possesses the words of Torah according to their true significance,” and those who don’t. And the true Sage will grieve over the honor of Hashem, which is dependent upon the standing of Israel, Jerusalem, the Temple, and the ingathering of the exiles, may it be completed soon.

If I don't set Jerusalem above my highest joy!

 “This, then, is the proper frame of mind for one to cultivate, removed as it is from all considerations of personal pleasure, directed only towards the honor of the Presence and towards the sanctification of His Name, which is sanctified by His creations when they do His will. In relation to this it is said (Zohar, Mishpatim), ‘Who is a Saint? One who is Saintly with his Creator.’ A Saint of this kind, aside from being motivated in the proper manner in relation to the performance of mitzvot in pursuance of his Divine service, must, without doubt, constantly feel actual pain over Jerusalem and the Destruction because of their tendency to minimize the honor of the Blessed One, and will lust for the Redemption so that the honor of the Blessed One may grow. As stated by the aforementioned ‘Tanna d'bei Eliyahu:’ ‘And he lusts and feels pain for the honor of Jerusalem and prays constantly for the Redemption of Israel and for the restoration of the honor of Heaven to its former pre-eminence.’"

In other words, a Jew is to constantly feel actual pain over the destruction of Jerusalem and exile, which minimize the honor of Hashem in the eyes of the world. Even during sisterhood meetings, lavish Kiddushes, Sunday brunches, golf games, and trips to the Caribbean.

Grieving over Jerusalem

“Mesilat Yesharim” continues:

“If one would say, ‘Who am I and what am I worth that I should pray for Jerusalem etc... Will the exiles be gathered in and will Salvation sprout because of my prayer?’ his answer awaits him. As we learned (Sanhedrin 37a) ‘Man was created individually so that each man should say, `The world was created for my sake.'" It is the Blessed One's pleasure that His sons desire and pray for this. And though their desire may not be fulfilled because the proper time has not yet arrived, or for some other reason, they will have done their part and the Holy One Blessed Be He rejoices in it. The Prophet stormed over the absence of this attitude (Isaiah, 59:16) ‘And he saw that there was no man, and he was amazed that there was no contender’ and (Ibid. 63:5) ‘And I looked and there was no helper, and I was amazed and there was no supporter,’ and (Jeremiah, 30:17) ‘It is Zion; no one inquires after it.’ Commenting upon this verse, our Sages of blessed memory said (Sukkah 41a) ‘This shows that it needs inquiring after.’”

In other words, every Jew has to do his share in uplifting Hashem’s fallen honor by participating in the ingathering of the exiles, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the revival of the Nation of Israel in Eretz Yisrael.  In his book, “Eim HaBanim Semeichah,” Rabbi Yissachar Teichtal explains that for nearly 2000 years we could only pray. But now, in our generation, when we have the physical capability of actualizing our prayers, we must actively participate in the return to Zion. Just as a person understands that to have a baby, it is not enough to pray, but he must also perform the necessary deed.

You have to do more than pray.

So too "inquiring after Zion” means working to re-establish the Jewish People in Eretz Yisrael by praying, reading Arutz 7, making financial contributions to organizations in Israel, coming on aliyah, encouraging others to follow, educating Diaspora youth to the set aliyah above their chiefest joy, and studying, working, defending, and raising one’s children in the Land. This is how Hashem’s honor is raised.

I remind you, dear readers, this is not some religious Zionist propaganda, or the wild invention of Tzvi Fishman, but the holy words of “Mesilat Yesharim,” which is learned in yeshivot throughout the world (assuming they keep learning until Chapter Nineteen).   

Rabbi Luzzato concludes:

“We see, then, that we are duty-bound in this respect. We cannot exempt ourselves because of our inadequate strength, for in relation to all such things we learned (Avoth 2.16) ‘The work is not yours to complete, but you are not free to abstain from it.’ And the Prophet says elsewhere (Isaiah, 51:18) ‘She has no one to lead her from among all the sons to whom she has given birth; no one to hold her hand from among all the sons she has raised.’ And the verse (Ibid. 40:6) ‘All flesh is grass and all of his kindness is as the blossoming of the field,’ which our Sages of blessed memory interpreted (Avodah Zarah 2b) as meaning that all of their kindnesses are performed for their own sake, for their own good and pleasure, that they are not governed by this pure motivation and do not seek the magnification of God's honor and the redemption of Israel. The honor of God can grow only with the redemption of Israel and the growth of their honor, the one, in reality, being dependent upon the other, as may be seen in the aforementioned ‘Tanna d'bei Eliyahu:’ ‘And he grieves over the honor of the Holy One Blessed Be He and over the honor of Israel.’"

In other words – let “Mesilat Yesharim” be your yardstick. Are you grieving over the honor of Hashem? Are you doing everything you possibly can to advance the ingathering of the exiles and the rebuilding of Eretz Yisrael? Are you teaching your children that the goal of the Torah is to magnify the honor of Hashem by living a life of Torah in Israel? Are you planning your own aliyah? For those who can’t come, are you encouraging others to make moving to Israel their life’s supreme ambition?

On Jerusalem Day, have you set Jerusalem above your chiefest joy?