Ladies and Gentlemen, there is only one G-d. There are not two, or three G-ds, or personalized G-ds to fit your beliefs and pleasures. Unlike ice cream, the real G-d doesn’t come in different flavors to fit your tastes.

The one and only real G-d is the G-d who chose the Jewish People and gave them His Torah and the Land of Israel. Someone, like the President of the United States, who says that he believes in G-d, but that the Jews don’ have a legitimate right to Judea and Samaria, he does not believe in G-d. Maybe he believes in some Walt Disney fantasy of G-d, but it isn’t G-d. The one and only real G-d gave the Land of Israel to the Jews.

And someone who says, like the Arabs, that they believe in G-d, but that Israel is their enemy, then they don’t believe in the real G-d either. G-d loves the Jewish People. Someone who truly loves G-d also loves His children. Someone who doesn’t love the children of G-d, really doesn’t love G-d. As Rashi states, the enemies of Israel are the enemies of G-d.

Tower of Babel

Yesterday at the United Nations, the President of the United States declared war against G-d. It reminded me of the Tower of Babel and the “Generation of the Dispersion,” when all of the peoples gathered together to declare war on G-d.

When you proclaim that the Jewish People do not have legitimate rights to Judea and Samaria, you are saying you do not believe in the Bible. You are saying that you do not believe in G-d. You are saying that your personal belief and historical understanding  are above what G-d believes and wants for the world. Like the people who built the Tower of Babel, you are saying that you are above G-d. In effect, you are declaring war on G-d.

This week’s Torah’s portion, “Haazinu,” states: “When the Most High divided among the nations their inheritance; when he separated the sons of Adam; he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the Children of Israel. For the L-rd’s portion is His People; Yaacov is the lot of His Inheritance” (Devarim, 32:8).

When G-d created the world, He divided it among the different peoples. He gave Russia to the Russians, Egypt to the Egyptians, America to the Indians, and Israel to the Jews.  

How sad! Here, a few days after the Jewish People prayed two days straight on Rosh Hashanah for the benefit of all the nations of the world, the President of the United States, at the United Nations of Babel, wedges a knife in the back of G-d’s children. Just a few days after the Jewish People prayed that the fear of G-d spread to all peoples over the earth, the peoples of the earth, led by America’s new President, spit in G-d’s “face,” by spitting on his People, in the Tower of the United Babelonians.  

This, of course, does not come as a surprise. Rashi, in his very first comment on the Bible, tells us that the Bible starts with the story of Creation, and not with the laws of the Torah, in answer to the gentile peoples of the world, who will claim in the future that the Jewish People stole the Land of Israel – so the Torah states right off that the same G-d who created the world, also gave the Land of Israel to the Jews.

For my part, I thank G-d with all of my heart and soul that I live in the Land of G-d, and not in the land of the haters of G-d. If I lived in America, I would be so embarrassed to be an American today that I would stay locked up in my house, too ashamed to show my beard in the street, lest a gentile think that I agreed with the President. Then, in the darkness of night, I would sneak off to the airport to get on the first plane to Israel, where the Jewish People belong.

As we say in our prayers during the Days of Awe, “May the day come soon when all wickedness will vanish from existence like smoke, when You will remove from the earth the government of those who purposefully plan evil.”

Amen.

The Rambam teaches that repentance and Yom Kippur only secure forgiveness for transgressions against G-d; as, for example, when one has eaten a forbidden food or indulged in illicit intercourse. However, transgressions against one’s fellow man, like cursing one’s neighbor or stealing something from him, are never forgiven until the injured party has been compensated and appeased (Laws of Repentance, 2:13).

The Rambam emphasizes: “Even if a person only annoyed another in words, he has to pacify the latter and entreat him till he has obtained his forgiveness” (Ibid).

This is an especially tough one for bloggers whose words go out to all corners of the globe. Go find the person you offended in cyberspace!

Now, I am sure I have offended many fine people who live in faraway places like Brooklyn and Toronto and Manchester and Australia and the Jews of Timbuktu. To mention only a few. So I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your forgiveness for the things that I have written that have caused you embarrassment, discomfort, and emotional and spiritual pain.

While my intention was purely educational, to alert my cherished brothers and sisters to a better, holier way of life, my sarcastic, bombastic, and often exaggerated style surely offended not a few, and for this I ask your forgiveness.

To judge my readers fairly, many simply have never had the privilege to learn Torah; or to have learned Torah in its proper perspective; and many are respectfully following the teachers who taught them things that I have taken exception to in this blog.

Whatever the causes for our disagreements, I apologize for presenting the Torah and the teachings of our Sages in a way that offended you. I am sorry if anything I wrote caused any of my brothers and sisters to have negative thoughts about the Torah, or about the Land of Israel, or about religious Jews, or about G-d.

As for me, I whole-heartedly forgive anyone who wrote something nasty or offensive about me in a Talkback. You don’t need to ask forgiveness – I forgive you carte blanche without your asking.        

It is my prayer to the Almighty that you, and all the people of the Brit, be inscribed immediately in the Book of Life for blessing, prosperity, salvation, and peace.

The Fast of Gedalia, which falls the day after Rosh Hashanah, is a fast over the destruction of the first State of Israel. That’s right. After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, The King of Babylon appointed Gedalia Ben Achikam to govern over the remnant of Jews still in the Land of Israel. When Gedalia was murdered, the Jewish government in Israel was terminated, and the remaining Jews were exiled from the Land. As the Rambam states, we are fasting and mourning over the loss of Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael.

As everyone knows, sovereignty over a land means political statehood. At that time, Gedalia was the leader of the State of Israel. Our Sages decreed that the Fast of Gedalia be held for all generations to come, in order to teach the transcendental importance of the Jewish sovereignty over Eretz Yisreal.

Ironically, many of the Jews who are fasting today are against the State of Israel, and make a pastime of condemning its shortcomings – yet they are fasting because of its very destruction. We don’t fast today over the destruction of the Temple – we have Tisha B’Av for that. We fast over the cessation of the first Jewish commonwealth in Israel, which was the first State of Israel. Without the State of Israel, the Jewish People and Judaism are in exile, and G-d’s honor is scorned and belittled in the world.

The truth is that many Jews don’t appreciate the State of Israel because they were never taught that Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel is a fundamental principal of the Torah. In fact, it is the goal of the Torah, because it is through Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel that the honor of G-d is manifest in the world, as the Psalm says: “Then it was said amongst the nations – the L-rd has done great things for them” (Tehillim, 126:3). In out time, the ingathering of the exiles, with the revival of the Jewish State, is the greatest sanctification of G-d that there is.

This should be obvious to everyone. Without Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel, the Torah is chopped up into little pieces, with a lot of big chunks missing. Without Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel, the Torah is merely a compilation of personal mitzvot, like keeping the Shabbat, eating kosher food, and putting on tefillin. If this was all the Torah was about, we could have kept it in Egypt, or in the wilderness. But G-d wanted us to keep the Torah in the Land of Israel, precisely because the Torah is the national constitution of the Jewish Nation, not just a list of individual commandments. And to have our own Divinely-ordained government, justice system, army, economy, and society according to G-d’s laws, we need our own Holy Land. Our control over the Land of Israel is the underlying basis of all of the Torah. Without it, we are scattered and disgraced. In order to sanctify G-d’s Name in the world, and to bring the Jewish People honor as G-d’s chosen nation, Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel is a must. Its re-establishment in our time, via the State of Israel, is a supreme step forward in returning us, and the world, to G-d.

There are seven days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. So why is it called the “Ten Days of Repentance?” The answer is that the two days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are included in the count. This is obvious regarding Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is spent in fasting and confessional prayer. But there is no confession or vidui on Rosh Hashanah. Unlike Yom Kippur, we don’t clop our hearts in sorrow over the long list of our sins. We spend our two days in shul proclaiming the Kingship of G-d over our lives and over the world. So why is Rosh Hashanah considered part of the Ten Days of Repentance (T’shuva)?

The answer is simple. Proclaiming G-d’s Kingship over our lives is the very essence of t’shuva. This is because when a person sins he forgets about G-d.

Remember, G-d is watching you.

For instance, when an Internet watcher clicks on an erotic website, he is ignoring G-d. He is in essence saying, “OK, G-d, you may be King, but not now. Go away for awhile.”

Or he rationalizes by saying, “G-d is King, but He doesn’t bother Himself with little transgressions like this.”

Or he is saying, “King or not, I am going to do what I want.”

In the time that he spends watching forbidden sites, and transgressing the commandment, “Thou shall not stray after your hearts and your eyes,” he rejects G-d’s Kingship and makes himself king instead. He allows his lusts and evil inclination to rule over his life.

Obviously, if a king of flesh and blood were standing by a person’s computer, gazing over his back at what he was watching, the person wouldn’t sin. Now G-d, who is the King of Kings, is there all the time watching. So if we watch things we shouldn’t be watching, we are forgetting Him, or pretending that He isn’t there.

Of course, most people don’t transgress G-d’s commandments willfully in a spirit of open rebellion, but because they give in to their passions and let evil forces rule over them.

So when we proclaim G-d’s Kingship over the world on Rosh Hashanah, we are making atonement for all of the times that we forgot about Him, or conveniently dismissed Him from our lives for an hour or two, so we could follow after our passions and pollute the world that He created with our sins.

May it be His will that this Rosh Hashanah we accept G-d’s Kingship over our lives with a willing heart, and keep His Presence forever before us, recalling that He is ever present, gazing over our shoulders, listening to all of our words, and recording all of our thoughts.     

SPECIAL NOTICE!

On Erev Rosh Hashanah, Friday, Sept. 18, at 12:00 noon Jerusalem time, the "Tikun HaKlali" is being simultaneously recited all over the world. Since the month of Elul and the High Holy Days are propitious times to rectify sexual transgressions, it is a wonderful opportunity to magnify the healing power of this prayer by joining Jews from all over the world.   

Shana Tova!

This year, I am going to strive to be a holier person by guarding my eyes and my speech more diligently. I have started out by reciting this prayer every morning. Rav Leon advises all of his students to say it, and he says it each morning too.

Rabbi Eliahu Leon Levi

DAILY PRAYER

FOR GUARDING ONE’S SPEECH AND ONE’S EYES

Composed by Rabbi Eliahu Leon Levi

MASTER OF THE WORLD, holy Father, may it be Thy will that You enable me and my family, along with all of the Jewish People, to guard our eyes from seeing unholy matters, and to guard our mouths from evil speech, and from vain and impure utterances, and guard over us from hearing these kinds of things and accepting them as true.

I will be very careful not to suspect any Jew of improper doings, and enable me, my Father, to have the daily merit of speaking in the praise and defense of the Nation of Israel, for their benefit and blessing, happiness and joy.

From this day forth, I will endeavor to guard over my speech from falsehood, flattery, cynicism, bitter arguments, arrogance, anger, misleading communication, and embarrassing others. For these things can, G-d forbid, bring us to a spiritual and moral decline in the ways that You have chartered for us in Your Torah. From this day forth, I will endeavor, my dear Father, to speak holy matters intrinsic to the betterment of my soul, and I will strive, from this time forth, that my deeds be in the honor of the L-rd G-d of Israel, for the sake of Heaven.

Our Father, Father of Mercy, may I merit, from his day forth, to guard my ears and my eyes from hearing, seeing, and reading profane matters, empty of Your honor, things like heresy, atheism, words of division, and forbidden images, whether prohibited by the Torah or the enactments of our Rabbis.

Our Father in Heaven, I beseech You to help me, to erase from my mind everything that I heard or saw that was not in light with Your honor – may all of these things be forgotten and nullified from my psyche like earthenware that has been shattered, which is considered as naught. Likewise, grant me the merit, that from this day forth, I won’t hear or see things that are not in Your honor. May my ears and eyes be sanctified, hearing and seeing only holy matters.

May this prayer ascend to the uppermost celestial reaches before our Father in Heaven, and may we be elevated, along with all of our kinsmen, the Nation of Israel, in the fear and love of G-d, and in the love of our fellow Jew, with the coming of our righteous Mashiach, Amen, may it be Your will.