In between a massacre in a pizza parlor, a bomb in a caf?, daily shootings on the roads of Judea and Samaria and the shelling of the Katif settlements in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli public has in recent weeks been devoting its attention to the issue of women soldiers in combat units. Outside observers may have difficulty understanding how Israelis don't have enough problems and have to create yet another one. However, in fact it?s all the same problem albeit in another guise.
The enlistment of women in the IDF has been a bone of contention between religious and non-religious Israelis from the very beginning. In the end, a formula was hammered out that permitted Israeli society to continue to function despite its internal divisions: Jewish girls would serve in the IDF, within the same base norms of promiscuity rampant in all the other armies of the world, and the religious girls would be granted an exemption from military service if they so desired. Those who wished could volunteer for national service instead of military service and serve under conditions more befitting their religious way of life.
This compromise did not produce particularly chaste relations between men and women in the army. On the contrary, the IDF has always had a poor record on the issue. However, at least in principle, there was separation between the sexes during training and exercises, a separation that enabled highly morally motivated soldiers to avoid moral transgressions.
Late one night, I arrived at a new army camp. I could find no one to report to at such a late hour, so I just dumped my sleeping bag on one of the empty beds in the officers' quarters, crawled into it, and immediately fell asleep. In the middle of the night, I awoke to the sounds coming from the next bed. In the morning, a young woman soldier hurriedly left and returned to the women soldiers' quarters. Those familiar with the IDF will not be surprised in the least with this account.
Until now, men and women soldiers engaging in this type of conduct did so surreptitiously. If the girl soldier had been caught in the officer's quarters, she could have faced disciplinary action. Consequently, as a religious Jew, I had the theoretical option of invoking the army regulations and preventing such occurrences in my room. The army, at least morally, even if not necessarily in practice, appeared to be on my side.
However, the army regulations were not based on any moral values and certainly not on any Jewish principles. They were based on separation practices as applied in the Western armies (mainly the British army) and on rampant male chauvinism, particularly in the case of combat units. Religious Israelis managed somehow to come to terms with this lack of values. The real problem arose when reversal of values became the vogue.
Israel is being swept away by a "reverse-value" whirlwind. Day has become night, night is day, good has become evil and evil is good. The most clear-cut example of this phenomenon was the Rabin-Arafat handshake. The handshake placed all Israelis on the bench of the International War Crimes Court in the Hague. The handshake represented the Israeli recognition of the legitimacy of the struggle waged by the PLO for the liberation of Palestine from the yoke of the Jewish conquerors. The infamous handshake created the Palestinian nation, awarded recognition to their claim to a homeland in Eretz Israel, acknowledged that "their" homeland is occupied by a colonial Zionist conqueror and that the Palestinian-Arab terrorists are actually freedom fighters. This inevitably turned the Israelis into war criminals.
The post-modernist / feminist philosophy was the tool employed by the criminals who led the Oslo process. To fully understand the issue, it is necessary to identify the forces at play. Fundamentally, this is a war between life and death. Good, morality, and life are on one side and evil and death on the other.
?See, I have placed before you today, life and good, death and evil (Deut. 30, 15).?
Indeed, there is both good and evil, in contrast to the view of the pagan post-modernists. There is life and there is death and they are created by differentiating between the sexes and not as the advocates of feminism claim. Life is created through separation. Cells split, separate, and create life. The primeval state is one of death and confusion. ?In the beginning, the earth was unformed and void, and darkness covered the face of the chasm.? The Creator of life then began to separate: light from darkness, dry land from the seas, woman from man, and the Jews from the nations of the world.
However, life is not static. To sustain life, it is necessary to constantly expend energy to maintain the separation and order. Every housewife knows full well that the natural state of the home is chaos and that a tremendous amount of energy must be continually exhausted to maintain the orderliness that differentiates chaos from a living home. Death is lurking at all times. Substances that are not actively maintained separate, tend to mix. Energy must be continuously expended to keep them "alive". Chaos, the blurring of differences, the pagan temptation to abandon oneself to the whirlpool that strives to return the world to its death - these are the forces the Jewish people is reckoning with.
These forces of death always know how to don a cultured and enlightened guise. They present themselves as the beauty and purity of life. They speak in the name of order and enlightenment, but in reality they are in the service of chaos, darkness, and death.
"Why did you have to declare that two men constitute a family?" Justice Barak, the president of the Israeli Supreme Court was asked. If compensation is due to one of the pair of homosexuals, couldn't you have awarded it according to the usual contractual procedure? Why involve the issue of matrimony? Aharon Barak, like every other dictator, found it unnecessary to explain his action. It is in fact doubtful whether he himself fully understands the forces that motivate him, but in practice he makes use of all the dictatorial tools that he has created to advance the process of the blurring of specificity. The blurring of values, of sexual identity, of the family unit, of the national identity, of territorial borders - a blurring of differentiation, a return to chaos and death.
What induced the woman soldier who wanted to become a fighter pilot, to petition the Supreme Court? Was it really intense love for the homeland? Unbounded Zionism? Or was it perhaps the need to express herself as a man - the ultimate in feminist blurring of values?
What was clear was the immediate cooperation on the part of the Supreme Court, in a ruling that tore down the delicate barrier of differentiation that still existed in the IDF. It was totally irrelevant that combat service by women adversely affects operational capabilities, a fact discovered by many armies around the world, which have since abandoned the idea. It didn't matter if the IDF would be ruined and if the country would fall apart. So long as, by using the pretence of sacrifice, we can achieve our aims. That said, I believe that in some, and perhaps many, of the girls there truly exists a sense of sacrifice, but unfortunately it is channeled to the service of this new form of idolatry. The important thing is that we exploit the security ethic, itself created by the animal instinct of survival that represents the last surviving justification for the existence of the nation. What counts is that we exploit the most sanctified Israeli value in order to drag our confused and tortured nation into the swirl of chaos and death.
And where are the Rabbis?
"Am I OK?" the heroic woman soldier, Hanni Abramov, asked the Chief Rabbi during his visit to the hospital (Abramov was critically wounded by Arab terrorists while on patrol with other women soldiers). Did the establishment rabbi really think that she was asking for a medical opinion? She felt in her soul the pain of the lie, in addition to that of her demolished face. But the rabbi just uttered a few polite words of encouragement, and left. Doesn't he understand the magnitude of the issue?
The Haredi rabbis have no problem. Their predictions have proved amazingly accurate and they have nothing left to do but wring their hands in pretended sorrow and wait for the end of Zionism. All the Jews are hurled into the pits of death, but the Haredim will deny that any historical parallels can be drawn.
And what about the Zionist rabbis, the rabbis of the Hesder yeshivas and of the National Religious Party? Where are they? They are captive to the notions of classical Zionism. Their dependence on the Zionist ideology prevents them from comprehending the process of destruction taking place before them. Their arguments against women's service are truly embarrassing. The Leftist media ridicule every hesitating rabbi who tries to justify his opposition to the service of women soldiers in combat units by explaining that the men soldiers will have difficulty concentrating on their mission. "Ah!" exclaim the talk show hosts, ?All you have on your mind is sex! This is proof that your principles of separation are driving you crazy, that differentiation is death and that chaos is actually life. And if you rabbis have a problem with women combat soldiers and Halacha - not to worry, we'll find a way. Perhaps we'll sell the girls together with the hametz before Pesach or maybe we'll find some other convenient Halachic loophole. With a bit of time and some creativity on your part, Chief Justice Barak's world order will become compatible with your notions of Redemption and Messianic processes.?
When the standard-bearers of Judaism have enchained themselves in the bonds of religious details, Justice Barak can party. He gets on fine with these bonds - in the army, our Midianite and Moabite girls will eat glatt kosher food, the Sabbath will be scrupulously observed and everyone will be happy: the Haredi rabbis, the Zionist rabbis, the Left and the Right, no one will get out of line - on our way to the gas chambers.
------------
Moshe Feiglin, founder of Manhigut Yehudit, The Jewish Leadership Movement, led the campaign of mass civil disobedience against the Oslo accords in 1995. Feiglin is currently championing the registration of thousands of new members to the Manhigut Yehudit bloc in Likud to create a Judaism-based leadership for the State of Israel. For more information, visit manhigut.org.
The enlistment of women in the IDF has been a bone of contention between religious and non-religious Israelis from the very beginning. In the end, a formula was hammered out that permitted Israeli society to continue to function despite its internal divisions: Jewish girls would serve in the IDF, within the same base norms of promiscuity rampant in all the other armies of the world, and the religious girls would be granted an exemption from military service if they so desired. Those who wished could volunteer for national service instead of military service and serve under conditions more befitting their religious way of life.
This compromise did not produce particularly chaste relations between men and women in the army. On the contrary, the IDF has always had a poor record on the issue. However, at least in principle, there was separation between the sexes during training and exercises, a separation that enabled highly morally motivated soldiers to avoid moral transgressions.
Late one night, I arrived at a new army camp. I could find no one to report to at such a late hour, so I just dumped my sleeping bag on one of the empty beds in the officers' quarters, crawled into it, and immediately fell asleep. In the middle of the night, I awoke to the sounds coming from the next bed. In the morning, a young woman soldier hurriedly left and returned to the women soldiers' quarters. Those familiar with the IDF will not be surprised in the least with this account.
Until now, men and women soldiers engaging in this type of conduct did so surreptitiously. If the girl soldier had been caught in the officer's quarters, she could have faced disciplinary action. Consequently, as a religious Jew, I had the theoretical option of invoking the army regulations and preventing such occurrences in my room. The army, at least morally, even if not necessarily in practice, appeared to be on my side.
However, the army regulations were not based on any moral values and certainly not on any Jewish principles. They were based on separation practices as applied in the Western armies (mainly the British army) and on rampant male chauvinism, particularly in the case of combat units. Religious Israelis managed somehow to come to terms with this lack of values. The real problem arose when reversal of values became the vogue.
Israel is being swept away by a "reverse-value" whirlwind. Day has become night, night is day, good has become evil and evil is good. The most clear-cut example of this phenomenon was the Rabin-Arafat handshake. The handshake placed all Israelis on the bench of the International War Crimes Court in the Hague. The handshake represented the Israeli recognition of the legitimacy of the struggle waged by the PLO for the liberation of Palestine from the yoke of the Jewish conquerors. The infamous handshake created the Palestinian nation, awarded recognition to their claim to a homeland in Eretz Israel, acknowledged that "their" homeland is occupied by a colonial Zionist conqueror and that the Palestinian-Arab terrorists are actually freedom fighters. This inevitably turned the Israelis into war criminals.
The post-modernist / feminist philosophy was the tool employed by the criminals who led the Oslo process. To fully understand the issue, it is necessary to identify the forces at play. Fundamentally, this is a war between life and death. Good, morality, and life are on one side and evil and death on the other.
?See, I have placed before you today, life and good, death and evil (Deut. 30, 15).?
Indeed, there is both good and evil, in contrast to the view of the pagan post-modernists. There is life and there is death and they are created by differentiating between the sexes and not as the advocates of feminism claim. Life is created through separation. Cells split, separate, and create life. The primeval state is one of death and confusion. ?In the beginning, the earth was unformed and void, and darkness covered the face of the chasm.? The Creator of life then began to separate: light from darkness, dry land from the seas, woman from man, and the Jews from the nations of the world.
However, life is not static. To sustain life, it is necessary to constantly expend energy to maintain the separation and order. Every housewife knows full well that the natural state of the home is chaos and that a tremendous amount of energy must be continually exhausted to maintain the orderliness that differentiates chaos from a living home. Death is lurking at all times. Substances that are not actively maintained separate, tend to mix. Energy must be continuously expended to keep them "alive". Chaos, the blurring of differences, the pagan temptation to abandon oneself to the whirlpool that strives to return the world to its death - these are the forces the Jewish people is reckoning with.
These forces of death always know how to don a cultured and enlightened guise. They present themselves as the beauty and purity of life. They speak in the name of order and enlightenment, but in reality they are in the service of chaos, darkness, and death.
"Why did you have to declare that two men constitute a family?" Justice Barak, the president of the Israeli Supreme Court was asked. If compensation is due to one of the pair of homosexuals, couldn't you have awarded it according to the usual contractual procedure? Why involve the issue of matrimony? Aharon Barak, like every other dictator, found it unnecessary to explain his action. It is in fact doubtful whether he himself fully understands the forces that motivate him, but in practice he makes use of all the dictatorial tools that he has created to advance the process of the blurring of specificity. The blurring of values, of sexual identity, of the family unit, of the national identity, of territorial borders - a blurring of differentiation, a return to chaos and death.
What induced the woman soldier who wanted to become a fighter pilot, to petition the Supreme Court? Was it really intense love for the homeland? Unbounded Zionism? Or was it perhaps the need to express herself as a man - the ultimate in feminist blurring of values?
What was clear was the immediate cooperation on the part of the Supreme Court, in a ruling that tore down the delicate barrier of differentiation that still existed in the IDF. It was totally irrelevant that combat service by women adversely affects operational capabilities, a fact discovered by many armies around the world, which have since abandoned the idea. It didn't matter if the IDF would be ruined and if the country would fall apart. So long as, by using the pretence of sacrifice, we can achieve our aims. That said, I believe that in some, and perhaps many, of the girls there truly exists a sense of sacrifice, but unfortunately it is channeled to the service of this new form of idolatry. The important thing is that we exploit the security ethic, itself created by the animal instinct of survival that represents the last surviving justification for the existence of the nation. What counts is that we exploit the most sanctified Israeli value in order to drag our confused and tortured nation into the swirl of chaos and death.
And where are the Rabbis?
"Am I OK?" the heroic woman soldier, Hanni Abramov, asked the Chief Rabbi during his visit to the hospital (Abramov was critically wounded by Arab terrorists while on patrol with other women soldiers). Did the establishment rabbi really think that she was asking for a medical opinion? She felt in her soul the pain of the lie, in addition to that of her demolished face. But the rabbi just uttered a few polite words of encouragement, and left. Doesn't he understand the magnitude of the issue?
The Haredi rabbis have no problem. Their predictions have proved amazingly accurate and they have nothing left to do but wring their hands in pretended sorrow and wait for the end of Zionism. All the Jews are hurled into the pits of death, but the Haredim will deny that any historical parallels can be drawn.
And what about the Zionist rabbis, the rabbis of the Hesder yeshivas and of the National Religious Party? Where are they? They are captive to the notions of classical Zionism. Their dependence on the Zionist ideology prevents them from comprehending the process of destruction taking place before them. Their arguments against women's service are truly embarrassing. The Leftist media ridicule every hesitating rabbi who tries to justify his opposition to the service of women soldiers in combat units by explaining that the men soldiers will have difficulty concentrating on their mission. "Ah!" exclaim the talk show hosts, ?All you have on your mind is sex! This is proof that your principles of separation are driving you crazy, that differentiation is death and that chaos is actually life. And if you rabbis have a problem with women combat soldiers and Halacha - not to worry, we'll find a way. Perhaps we'll sell the girls together with the hametz before Pesach or maybe we'll find some other convenient Halachic loophole. With a bit of time and some creativity on your part, Chief Justice Barak's world order will become compatible with your notions of Redemption and Messianic processes.?
When the standard-bearers of Judaism have enchained themselves in the bonds of religious details, Justice Barak can party. He gets on fine with these bonds - in the army, our Midianite and Moabite girls will eat glatt kosher food, the Sabbath will be scrupulously observed and everyone will be happy: the Haredi rabbis, the Zionist rabbis, the Left and the Right, no one will get out of line - on our way to the gas chambers.
------------
Moshe Feiglin, founder of Manhigut Yehudit, The Jewish Leadership Movement, led the campaign of mass civil disobedience against the Oslo accords in 1995. Feiglin is currently championing the registration of thousands of new members to the Manhigut Yehudit bloc in Likud to create a Judaism-based leadership for the State of Israel. For more information, visit manhigut.org.