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Sivan 26, 5768, 6/29/2008
The Land of Israel is Waiting
Take an empty can or plastic bottle of soda. Put a few pennies inside. Shake it. It makes a lot of noise, right? Now, take a slip of paper and write on it MIKE. Scotch tape it to the can. You can use it to scare away stray cats from your back yard, or use it as a noisemaker on Purim. Just a lot of fizz and foam
G-d created the world and gave the continents of the world to the gentiles, and the Land of Israel to the Jews. The commandment to live in the Land of Israel has absolutely no connection to the question whether Medinat Yisrael is holy or not. That is just a smokescreen that Mike employs to hide the fact that he isn’t here doing something to help create the Torah atmosphere we all long for. Instead he chooses to live in a gentile land helping the goyim. He chooses to follow his own will, rather than the will of G-d. And he makes a pathetic attempt to cover it up by finding a thousand things wrong with life in Israel. “Medinat Yisrael is out to kill the Jews!” Mike cries out in protest of Hashem’s great international ingathering of the Jewish People in our time. “The Israeli government isn’t religious! The Israel police and the Israeli army kick Jews out of their homes! They beat up girls in Amona! And the settler lemmings don’t fight back!” But even if there are ten thousand things wrong in the Land of Israel, it is still a commandment from the Torah to live here. This obligation applies in all generations. The mitzvah to live in the Land of Israel is totally independent of the religiousness of the government ruling here. Jews are commanded to live here whether idol worshippers rule here, or Jewish leftists, or terrifying giants, uncircumcised Philistines, or Torah Jews. Eretz Yisrael is Eretz Yisrael, independent of any other factor, and we all are commanded to live in Eretz Yisrael, as we have been from the time of our Forefathers until today. As to the side question regarding the holiness of Medinat Yisrael. Yes, Medinat Yisrael is holy. One of the commandments of the Torah, as clearly set forth by the Ramban, is to establish Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel (Supplement to the Sefer HaMitzvot of the Rambam, Positive Mitzvah #4). This supreme Torah mitzvah has been accomplished in our time by the establishment of the State of Israel. In the Laws of Hanukah, the Rambam declares that we celebrate the holiday of Hanukah because Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael was returned to the Jews for over two hundred years. We celebrate the Hanukah even though most of the Hashmonite rulers that followed the Maccabees were corrupt and estranged from the Torah. In the same light, the Second Temple was considered holy, even though Herod slaughtered all of the rabbis of his time, save one, whom he merely blinded. Jewish sovereignty is Jewish sovereignty whether the king or prime minister wears tzitzit or not. Mike cannot understand this because he doesn’t want to. He wants to stay in galut. True, the present government of Israel is corrupt. True, its political leaders are corrupt. True, its justice system is corrupt. True, corrupt anti-Torah leftists control the media. One can go on and on, but all of this corruption does not, in any shape or form, negate the commandment to live in the Land of Israel. Eretz Yisrael is above all governments and politicians. Just as a Jew has to eat holy food, and recite holy prayers, and perform holy acts, and observe holy days, he has to live in a holy place. There is only one holy place in the world. The Land of Israel. Not living in the Land of Israel is like not eating kosher food, and not going to shul, and not observing the holidays. Not living in the Land of Israel is much worse than ignoring these other basics of Jewish law, for living in Eretz Yisrael is the encompassing foundation of all of the Torah. Without it, a Jew can have a lifelong stock of gefilta fish in his basement, but he can’t have a Jewish king, a Sanhedrin, a shmittah year, prophecy, an Israeli air force, or a Beit HaMikdash, even in Brooklyn or Monsey, New York. He can practice a handful of personal mitzvot, but compared to Jewish life in Israel, Diaspora Judaism is Orthodox Lite. Mike can write noisy, penny-in-an-empty-can, talkbacks until he is blue in the face, but the very essence of Mike’s Jewishness is missing, because he is performing his private brand of exile Judaism in a place he doesn’t belong, in an impure gentile land, where all the goyim are wondering, “Why is this Jew living here with us, when G-d gave him his own Jewish land?” Instead of sanctifying the Name of G-d by coming to live in G-d’s chosen Land, Mike does the very opposite, as the prophet Ezekiel declares: “And when they came to the lands of the nations into which they came, they profaned My holy Name, in that men said of them, ‘These are the people of the L-rd and they have gone out of His land.’” How can this terrible disgrace be erased? Hashem Himself gives the answer: “I will sanctify My great Name, which was profaned among the nations, which you have profaned by being in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am the L-rd, says the L-rd G-d, when I shall be sanctified through you in their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own Land” (Ezekiel, 36:20-24). In our time, this great sanctifiction of G-d has been brought about via Medinat Yisrael. Thank G-d that it’s ours! If there are things needing improvement, come help. If money is a problem, Mike, I’m sure our readers will pitch in and buy you a ticket. Put up or shut up. The Land of Israel is waiting.
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Sivan 23, 5768, 6/26/2008
Bye Bye, Complainers
Apparently, there is a Jewish gene for complaining. In any crowd, there are always the Complainers who have to spoil things for everyone else. In this week’s Torah portion, we meet them again, Korach and his Crowd of Complainers. This time, they complain about the leadership of Moshe and Aaron. Two of them, Datan and Aviram, are longtime Complainers. They complained about Moshe in Egypt; they complained about the travel accommodations in the wilderness; now they are complaining again that Moshe has led the Jews out “of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness” (Bamidbar, 16:13). What chutzpah! Look how they turn things around. Eretz Yisrael is called the land flowing with milk and honey, but they describe Egypt in this way! Sound familiar? Over our history, Complainers have rejected Eretz Yisrael and found their own lands of milk and honey in Spain and France and Germany and America and Japan. The Torah commentator, the Abarbanel, reveals what was really at the core of their rebellion. In a last ditch effort to save the situation and give the Complainers a chance to repent before the test of the incense, Moshe sends for Datan and Aviram, but they stubbornly answer, “We will not come up” (Bamidbar, there). The simple meaning is that they will not come up to the Mishkan to meet with Moshe, but the Abarbanel teaches that their declaration "ìà ðòìä" was a call of rebellion, meaning “We will not make aliyah to Eretz Yisrael.” They remained adamant in their opposition to G-d’s plan for the Jewish People, that even if G-d were to forgive them for the sin of the Spies and allow the generation to enter the Land of Israel, “We will not come up.” This was the source of their rebellion against the leadership of Moshe, who was committed to bringing the Jews to Israel. They wanted the milk and honey of Brooklyn and Paris and Mexico City, where they could remain important people, and not Eretz Yisrael, where they would be just another worker of the Land. "Fishman and his blogs are true!"
We all know the rest of the story. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up all the Complainers. Hikers traveling through the Sinai today, can still hear their screams emanating from the bowels of the wilderness, “Moshe and his Torah are true!” Just like the Complainers of today will one day proclaim, “Fishman and his blogs are true!”
Shabbat Shalom
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Sivan 19, 5768, 6/22/2008
You Don't Have To Be Gay
Gay parades are not the only problem we have in the Holy Land. It is summertime and immodest fashions imported from America and Europe can be seen everywhere. Question:
Our family is modern Orthodox. I try to instill in my wife and daughters an appreciation for the laws of modesty, but it always leads to arguments. My wife says that wearing a blouse that reveals the cleft of the chest is the unspoken dress code in the office where she works, and my daughters always answer that all of their friends dress according to the going fashion and they don’t want to be the ugly ducklings in their crowd. My question is, how strict can I be if it leads to tension and quarrels at home?
Answer:
The renown Torah scholar, Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv, says that the issue of modesty is not to be seen as a demand from a man to his family, but rather a halachic requirement like all of the other laws in the Torah. This means that if there is a question of what is the proper style of clothing to wear, a qualified rabbi must be consulted, just like when there is a question in any other detail of the law.
Also, since daughters are influenced by the behavior of their mothers, it is important that the mother conform to the proper, halachic standard of dress for her daughters to follow. If she dresses in opposition to the ways of Jewish modesty, then it is not reasonable to expect that the daughters will behave otherwise. If this means that the mother might lose her job, this is a risk that must be taken in order to safeguard the Jewish law and the sanctity of the family and the marriage.
Getting one’s wife and daughters to agree to follow the laws of modesty should not come as an angry decree that must be followed blindly, but rather the women in the house should be taught to appreciate these laws and understand the consequences of breaking them. There are books on the subject of modesty that they can be encouraged to read. There are also classes and tapes on the subject that present the rewards and dangers in a palatable light.
It is important to inspire one’s family to understand that the principles of Judaism far outweigh any passing fashion. It is important to teach one’s family that it is more important to please Hashem, then to please the men in the office, or the guys and girls at school.
The halachic authority, Rabbi Moshe Shaul Klein, emphasizes that women should be made aware that infractions in modesty have not only personal consequences, but public consequences as well. A woman who goes out to the street wearing clothes that draw attention and show off her body, not only brings punishment on herself for violated a commandment, but she also brings others to sin. Regarding this it is written, whoever brings the multitude to sin will not be afforded the chance to repent. For if this woman causes a man to stray from the right path by triggering fantasies and forbidden actions, even if the woman repents for her errant behavior, all of the sins of the men she tempted still rest on her head. When she appears before the heavenly tribunal at the end of her life, she will have to give an accounting for all of her deeds, and she will discover that she is accused of myriads of transgressions, things that she never even thought to do. And when she asks, “What is this? What’s going on here? Isn’t this supposed to be the world of truth? I never committed these sins.” The heavenly tribunal will answer her, “Yes, these are all your doings, because you went about in immodest attire and caused thousands of men to sin. For whoever causes another person to sin receives all of his punishment. Therefore the responsibility for a woman to dress in a proper fashion isn’t a private matter alone, but a public concern, and a responsibility that affects all the Jewish nation, determining whether the Presence of G-d will dwell amongst us.
Furthermore, the masters of Kabbalah have longed warned us that one of the major causes of the tragedies and sufferings that come upon us is due to breaches in modesty. When women dress in opposition to the tenets of Jewish law, destructive angels are created that wreak havoc in revenge. Then it is too late to ask, “Why has this tragedy come upon us?”
By explaining these things in the proper fashion to one’s wife, and according to the age and intellectual capacity of one’s daughters, in order to enlighten, and not to invoke thunderbolts and lightning from out of the sky, a new respect and appreciation for the laws of modesty can be achieved in the home, for the betterment of the family and the Jewish People as a whole.
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Hollywood to the Holy Land
by Tzvi Fishman
Tzvi Fishman was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Jewish Creativity and Culture
Before making Aliyah to Israel in 1984, Tzvi Fishman was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. He has co-authored 4 books with Rabbi David Samson, based on the teachings of Rabbis A. Y. Kook and T. Y. Kook.
His other books include: The Kuzari For Young Readers and Tuvia in the Promised Land. His most recent book, Secret of the Brit, can be found at JewishSexuality.com, along with an abbreviated online version. |
