I look back from Simchat Torah 5784 to 5785:
1. A large population within Israel was determined to tear the country apart unless the free democratic election of a moderate-conservative-religious government would collapse on Leftist totalitarian terms. They gathered week after week, funded by Israel haters throughout the world, to destroy the freely elected government. There were too many professionally silk-screened banners and posters and buses and platforms to imagine that these weekly assemblages were a spontaneous “people’s” movement. It was funded from outside and critically promoted by Israel’s leftist media, who would front-page the times and places of all Leftist demonstrations as though they were the final game of the World Series or the Super Bowl.
These people were prepared to destroy everything if they could not override the popular vote. The likes of Ehud Barak even openly admitted that his second coming would arrive when dead Jews are floating in the waters. At that point, a cry would swell up from the earth, begging him to lead the Jews back to peace and tranquility, just as he did when he tried to give up the Temple Mount, did give up South Lebanon, and prompted the First Intifada by showing Arafat his weakness at Camp David.
2. October 7 happened. Everything in paragraph 1 came to a dead halt. All those who signed pledges not to serve in the IDF flew in from around the world to reenlist. Reservists who swore they never would serve as long as Bibi Netanyahu is Prime Minister raced to the front. The only ones who stayed behind were the Ehuds — Olmert and Barak — who went on speaking tours and media interviews throughout the world to stain and attack Israel. By contrast, Naftali Bennett put politics aside and went on TV in America and England passionately and elegantly putting forth Israel’s case. He has been an outstanding emissary of Israel in wartime as was Eylon Levy.
Amazing that Israel would dump one of its best spokesmen, Levy, during wartime but not a Hertzi Halevi or Yoav Gallant. If Abraham Lincoln acted that way, to this day George McClellan still would be promising to attack the South very soon. . .
3. Gaza has absorbed, so far, half of what it deserves. Half of the buildings that should be destroyed have been. Half of the terrorists who should be killed have been. But Israel has continued sending them food, water, and medical supplies in a complex operation aimed at replacing Hamas’s Qatari billions by supplying them to Hamas at wholesale for Hamas to maintain their tunnel warriors while selling the rest at price-gouging prices.
Through it all, Avigdor Liberman, perceived as a key component of the Lapid-Abbas “Opposition,” has been demanding to cut off the food, the electricity, and the meds. He should be Defense Minister, not Gallant, not Saar.
4. Benny Gantz was a partner with Prime Minister Netanyahu and others in pursuing the “concept(ion)” that a great future could be advanced with the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza if Israel’s borders would be opened to such Arab Muslim civilians to enter Israel daily, work in Israel, and mingle with Israelis. If Israel would transfer tax money to Abu Mazen (Mohammed Abbas), provide weapons for his police, work with him, and save him from assassinations, Abbas would reciprocate.
5. Ganz and others played the same strategy along the Gaza border. They put their faith not in G-d but in high tech — the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow II, and a zillion-dollar bells-and-whistles border security fence. Their certainty that peace was at hand was shared by many “Peace Now” leftists and secularists who made lives in kibbutzim near Gaza because they believed that the Israeli right wing was the deterrence to peace with “our cousins,” and they instead would show Gazan Arabs our “true face” by welcoming Gaza Arabs into their homes, making them quasi-family, ambulancing them to hospitals, and showering them with affection and friendliness. They introduced them to their kids and their pets, sharing their names and where they slept. Real mishpocho.
6. On October 7, a holy day when the Shmini Atzeret-Simchat Torah festivals saw traditional Jews all over the world in synagogues, dancing with Torahs, tattooed and pierced young people gathered for a “Nova” festival publicly desecrating our holy day, making a mockery of our holy day, dancing and twerking to their music under the bright stars.
7. The Arab Muslim murderers who perpetrated the unspeakably vile massacres of 1,200 Jews, cutting off heads, raping live women, raping dead women, putting babies into ovens and burning them alive, grabbing hundreds of Jews as hostages not only were Hamas “members” but also typical “innocent” Arab Muslim Gaza “civilians.”
The “civilians” also took part in the massacres and also seized hostages to bring back to Gaza where they either held them for themselves or sold them as chattel to Hamas. The “civilians” of Gaza freely elected Hamas as their governing body. They are Hamas, all of them. They were the workers who provided Hamas with the information, down to the names of the dogs, about each family
8. In the United States, assimilation is beyond rife. According to the president of the “Reform Judaism” body, the majority of their members now are intermarried. Since 1973, they have regarded people born of non-Jewish mothers as “Jews” if the fathers were Jews.
Now in the third generation of that “patrilineal descent” policy, it is safe to say that the vast majority of young “reform Jews” of college age and younger are not Jews. Even many of their rabbis are not Jews. These “Jews” of “reform judaism” — who are not Jews — are at the center of “Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP),” “IfNotNow,” “J Street,” and even “Students for Justice in Palestine.”
Rabbinic Judaism and Torah law well understood why Jews only can be the offspring of Jewish mothers or Righteous Converts (gerei tzedek) who undertake a rigorous conversion regimen culminating in a knowing commitment to a lifetime of Torah observance. There is now a robust Fifth Column among American Jews in JVP, IfNotNow, T’ruah, Code Pink, and J Street.
9. On American college campuses, Jewish assimilation has moved into “Code Red.” Even years before the anti-Semitism generated by the swarm of Arab Muslim foreign students, professors, and millions of dollars pumped into the colleges and universities, Jewish kids had been entering college as religious Jews or as assimilated secular liberal but Zionist Jews, and colleges had been turning many of the religious away from G-d, and many of the assimilated secular liberal Jews, the children of “reform judaism” Jewish and non-Jewish parents — away from their heritage.
No cure or remedy was in sight. Orthodox rabbis already had begun urging parents not to send their kids to American colleges or, at least, to send them for a “Gap Year” in Israel, as a “spiritual immunization” because American colleges already were destroying Jewish kids by the hundreds. However, a “Gap Year” immunization is like a flu vaccine: it has to be renewed every year or stops working. A “Gap Year” thus helps ensure that a religious Jewish teen at such a college will survive assimilation for the freshman year but will abandon the essence by the junior year.
10. Too many Jews in Israel and America have abandoned the particular specialness of being Jews, the glory of the Torah, the unique relationship the Jewish people have with G-d, and the special concern that Jews must have for each other. Assimilated Israelis and Americans consider themselves citizens of the world, no different from anyone else. They advocate forcefully against Israel and against Jewish rights.
To convince others to accept him, the assimilated Jew now must present himself as anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-religious. It no longer suffices to say “I oppose Netanyahu.” It once was enough to change from Bernie Schwartz to Tony Curtis. Now one must be an apostate like Bernie Sanders.
11. Throughout history, whenever the state of Jewish assimilation gets to “Code Red” severity, G-d turns the world upside-down into a period of irrational and agitated anti-Semitism. Why? It is as if He were saying “I will let a Jew here and there assimilate and face the eternal consequences for his or her soul if that person has an evil disposition and few offsets. There must be Free Will, and there can be no Free Will if I change My Creation’s rules of nature for each and every individual who strays. However, I will not allow the Jewish People to assimilate as a People and to disappear because the eternal presence of the Jewish People also is a Rule of Nature. Therefore, if Jews will not adhere to Torah, enjoying all the goodness showered upon them, I will craft more severe barriers to obstruct the People from abandoning Judaism, lest the Jewish People disappear,”
12. The template of 3,300 years is that He obstructs the disappearance of the Jewish People in the most elegant way: He hides His face, steps aside, and allows Jews full unobstructed pursuit of the alternative gods they prefer.
-They put their faith in Hellenizing like the Greeks, and they get a full dose of Greeks.
-They emulate the glorious Romans, even inviting them into the land to protect them.
-Moving to modern times, they sought to “reform” Judaism in 19th Century Germany, to “reform” their Judaism to emulate German ways, replete with organs, bare-headed rabbis in black robes, praying in German, declaring Berlin their Jerusalem and Germany their Palestine, extolling German science and German music and arts. So G-d let them get a full dose of German culture.
-Other Jews placed their faith in the new god of Communism, the force that ended Tsarist oppression, so G-d let them get a full dose of Communism.
-The Jews of the West placed great trust in the United Nations, saying that the General Assembly created Israel, so G-d gave them a full dose of the U.N.
13. In America, for very legitimate reasons arising from low-key Republican anti-Semitism a century ago, Jews abandoned G-d and placed their faith and trust in the Democrat party. So G-d let the Democrats take care of them.
-American Jews became obsessed with Black civil rights. In its first iteration, that made perfect sense, truly fulfilling Torah values. No Torah Jew could accept a culture where Blacks had to use separate water coolers, separate bathrooms, go to the back of the bus, be denied access to motels and hotels and even lunch counters. But, for Jews, it never stopped. It became an obsession. So G-d sent Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, and The Squad to take care of the Jews.
- And Jews put their faith in American colleges and universities. Beyond pursuing higher education, Jews saw these institutions as their ticket to melting in as equals in the society. So G-d has allowed the colleges and universities to take care of the Jews. He will allow individuals to dissolve; He will not allow an unbridled assimilation factory to operate.
14. He will not allow His people to disappear, no matter how hard many try. Suddenly, religious Jews and fully assimilated Jews at American colleges no longer can blend in and assimilate — unless they out-and-out deny themselves and condemn Israel. The rife anti-Semitism has forced their Jewishness on them. There are enough George Soroses and Bernie Sanderses and Ben & Jerrys out there, and the limit He has set has been reached.
15. In many ways, too, October 7 did not happen in a vacuum. Israelis on the Left were trying to tear the country apart. They were publicly telling the Arabs that they will not fight in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) if called up. Reservists signed letters that Arabs read that they will not fight.
And then the final step, something many never believed possible. On You Kippur 5784/2023, Leftist secular thugs in Tel Aviv physically attacked a Yom Kippur prayer service. We had seen this in 1930s Germany and 1970s Russia but never imagined it would be in Tel Aviv. G-d saw. The Arabs saw.
One week later was October 7.
16. G-d will not allow the Jewish people to disappear. If we adhere to the Torah, its laws and ways, the path is pleasant. If Jews run away, abandoning their destiny, some individuals will get by in Olam HaZeh (This World), but when the number of apostates reaches the maximum limit that only G-d knows, it seems from 3,300 years that He closes the door on assimilation.
Anti-semitism at American colleges leaves Jews with the realization that they may as well embrace their identity, at least maintaining self-respect. Wars from Gaza to Lebanon, and hatred from the Olympics to international court forums, leaves assimilated Jews with severely obstructed entry into the non-Jewish world. Even Israeli self-hating and anti-Zionist artists, poets, painters, professors, and literary stars find themselves banned from their professional associations. They remain stuck with their Jewishness and their Israel, like it or not. The world will not let them destroy Israel on Saturday nights in Tel Aviv because their beloved cousins are bombing their precious square.
17. It is a permanent, eternal October 7: anti-Semitism always will emerge to leave Jews with no choice but to accept, whether joyously or regretfully, that they have no other Land and no other Protector. He hardens hearts of Pharaohs, Arafats, and Sinwars. He prevents Judea and Samaria from being ceded, no matter what the Left tries. When the prophet Bil’am told King Balak of Moav that the Jews are a nation that will dwell alone, the king’s heart dropped. Unlike so many liberal assimilationist Jews, he understood that was G-d’s blessing to Israel.
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