Sorry, guys UPDATE: sk quits!

Sorry guys for having to repeat things, but a lot of you don’t seem to get it. And it really isn’t me – it’s the Torah. In this week’s Torah portion, when Avraham sends his servant, Eliezer, off to find a wife for Yitzhak, he has Eliezer swear an oath by placing his hand under Avraham’s “thigh.” The word “thigh” is a euphemism for the place of Avraham’s brit milah. Doesn’t this seem a little weird? Not when you understand that the place of the brit is holy. In fact, it is so holy, it’s like swearing on a Bible. And woe to anyone who misuses it through any kind of sexual transgression.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Next Avraham makes Eliezer promise not to take Yitzhak out of the Land of Israel. Why is this? Because Hashem wants the Jewish People to be in Israel. Any kid in grade school could figure this out from the text. Hashem gave the Jewish People their own Land, and He wants us to live there. To be the Jewish People, we have to live in the Jewish Land. It’s simple, straightforward, obvious to everyone.

Well, to almost everyone. For instance, there are a lot of readers of this blog who don’t seem to catch the point. They have dozens of excuses for evading the simple truth that every child understands, but the fact, as stated over and over again in the Torah, in all sorts of different ways, is that Hashem wants the Jewish People to live here in Israel, and not in America, England, or Australia.

What I can’t figure out is - now that Israel is back in our hands, why don’t these Jews rush to come home? Maybe some child can tell me.

Jewish Jokers

It is truly a sad and shameful disgrace that there are government leaders in Israel, judges, and law enforcement personal, jokes for Jews, who are prepared to evict brothers and sisters from the Shalom House in Hevron. Truly, they are possessed by some horrible inner self-hatred that brings them to war against fellow Jews and the Torah.

As others have written, if Avraham Avinu himself could come before them today with the deed of purchase of Hevron, these Jewish jokers would deny its validity.

But there is something even more frightening. There are Jews who, if they had been around at the time of Avraham, they would have demonstrated against his purchasing a burial plot in Hevron in the first place.  They would have pleaded with the Hittite not to sell Avraham the property at all.    

“Bury your wife in Vienna, Virginia instead!” they would have demanded.

“Let him bury her in Sidney, Australia!” others would have clamored.

“I sell you a burial place for half the price,” another would have promised Avraham, “If you bury her in Brooklyn, New York.”

Cave of the Patriarchs, Brooklyn, New York

The Jewish jokers in Israel, no matter how screwed up they may be, are willing to die for Haifa, Beer Sheva, Tiberias, or Tel Aviv. How many Diaspora Jews can say that?

Thus, the questions remains: who are the real Jewish jokers?

Short Story Contest

For readers who might not have seen this INN news item, you are all invited to send in entries. Who knows? Maybe one of your  fantasy scenarios might win.

(IsraelNN.com) If you are one of the many would-be writers who have unpublished short stories stashed away in their drawers, this may be your chance. In an effort to encourage creative Jewish writing, Jerusalem Israel Publications has announced a short-story writing contest which is offering attractive cash prizes sponsored by the Irving Moskowitz Foundation of Miami Beach, Florida.

The company’s director, Yisrael Goldberg, says that everyone talks about the need to inject true Torah values into the cultural arts in Israel, and he hopes that the contest will stimulate talented people to take their Jewish creativity out of the closet.

At the request of the Moskowitz family, the contest has a special category for young writers, to let their voices be heard. Participants are being asked to center their stories around one of three themes: the settlement of the Land of Israel acts of kindness or highway safety. 

Stories should be at least six pages in length, and the deadline for submission is Chanukah.

The contest accompanies the Jerusalem Israel Publications release of Tzvi Fishman’s new Hebrew book, “Creative Jewish Writing,” a how-to-manual that covers all aspects of creative writing from an unabashed Jewish perspective.

Book Jacket

Tzvi Fishman has published several popular Jewish novels, and taught screenwriting at New York University before immigrating to Israel. He was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Jewish Creativity and Culture. According to Fishman, the world didn’t learn the art of drama and storytelling from the Greeks as textbooks maintain. “All of the ingredients for dramatic storytelling were already in the Bible long before the Greeks appeared on the map,” he claims.

Explaining the importance of the short-story contest, Yisrael Goldberg says: “Whenever there’s talk of a peace agreement, the Israeli media rushes to interview their pet leftist novelists, as if they are the paragons of social justice and morality. Why don’t they interview writers like Tzvi Fishman instead? Hasn’t he written enough novels and movies? To make our voice heard, we have to promote writers with a religious and Zionist worldview. I hope the contest will stimulate that.”

Regarding the contest sponsors Fishman said, “When I visited Dr. Moskowitz and his family in Florida,” he recalls, “I was blown away by their home library. Bookcase after bookcase testify to their passionate commitment to the Land of Israel, Zionism, Jewish History, and Torah, and to quality literature as well.”

Three case prizes will be awarded to each of two age categories: 1) up to age 25 and 2) 25 and older.

The prizes are: First prize - 3000 NIS, Second prize - 2000 NIS and Third prize - 1000 NIS.

Story submissions in English or Hebrew can be sent to itzik@pisrael.com. Include your name, e-mail address, and age.