Paired with a soldier (Derashah Vayyichi 5769)

[Jack's Gaza Update 13 is here. Important reading.]

Adam ben Gila.

That’s the name of someone I’ve never met, someone about whom I know nothing further.

Well, that’s not quite true:
• I know that he’s an Israeli soldier.
• I know that he’s probably relatively young, although he may be my age if he’s a reservist.
• I know that, as _____________ said in her email last week, he’s probably tired, cold and scared.

And I know that on some level he must believe in the power of תפילה, of prayer, because he signed up to be paired with someone who would daven on his behalf.

That “someone,” his prayer partner, is me.


First, a bit of background.

At the end of the Jews’ period in the desert, before their entry into Israel, they were attacked by the Midianites. In response, at Divine command, the Jews mustered their troops for battle:
• The Torah records that Moshe told the Jews, “Prepare your soldiers - 1000 per tribe, 1000 per tribe, for all of the tribes of Israel.”
• The Torah then says, “From the thousands of Israel, 1000 per tribe were given to Moshe, a total of twelve thousand warriors.”
• And then the Torah adds, “And Moshe sent them, 1000 per tribe, to the army.”
What’s with all of the thousands?

A midrash explains, “שנים עשר אלף חלוצי צבא ושנים עשר אלף שהיו משמרין כליהם ושנים עשר אלף לתפלה - 12,000 warriors, 12,000 to guard their equipment, and 12,000 for prayer.” One davener for each soldier - that’s the ratio.

The Bostoner Rebbe, and Rav Simcha Kook, Chief Rabbi of Rechovot, have adapted this idea for the current war in Gaza, so that, as we advertised this past week, each of us can email or call and be paired with a soldier, to pray on his behalf.

And that’s how I “met,” so to speak, Adam ben Gila. I am responsible to pray and do mitzvos on behalf of this “tired, cold and scared” young man I have never met.


On one level, this idea of performing a mitzvah on someone else’s behalf is the simple concept described in a gemara which says, “One who gives tzedakah for the sake of his son’s health is fully righteous.” It’s about my mitzvah providing merit for someone else. He receives credit as the motivation for my mitzvah. Even if Adam ben Gila is entirely secular and would never have prayed on his own, he is my inspiration. So when I say tehillim, it’s as though he was saying tehillim. When I perform a mitzvah, it’s as though he was performing the mitzvah.

But more powerfully than that, when Adam ben Gila and I agree to this partnership I join with him, so that we are truly a single unit in the eyes of Hashem. Nations, in the eyes of the Torah, share merit and responsibility, so that Gd may reward or punish a nation, collectively. Cities share merit and responsibility, too, and so do families. Now, Adam ben Gila and I have become a sort of mini-tzibbur. If he is hurt, I am hurt. And if I perform a mitzvah, he has performed the mitzvah as well.


I have only known Adam ben Gila for a day or so, as of this writing, but he has already taught me a lot about ערבות, responsibility.

I thought I knew what it meant to say כל ישראל ערבין זה בזה, that all Jews are responsible for each other. After all, I spend most of my time looking after people and trying to help them in various ways. But this has given me a whole new understanding; it feels, oddly, almost like parenting.

I’ll be riding in the car, and suddenly wonder, “I wonder where he is now? I wonder what he’s doing? Maybe I could say a perek of tehillim for him while I wait at the stop light.”

I receive an email with a list of wounded soldiers and read it with trepidation, wondering if his name will be on there. Will I have let him down?

I worry a lot, actually, about letting him down. Since I took his name, the next person to email in will receive someone else’s name. Maybe the next person would have been a better match, would have said more tehillim, would have performed more meaningful mitzvos in his name.

It really is almost like the experience of having a child, and wondering how he is, what she’s doing, and whether I’m being a good parent - but this is for someone I’ve only just met.


Which leads me to wonder what it would be like to feel this way about everyone, about all of us, since all of us are part of a pact of national ערבות.

To a certain extent it would be impossible; to have this intensity of feeling for everyone would be unhealthy. As the gemara says, there are three types of people who cannot enjoy life: רחמנים, רתחנים ואניני הדעת, people who are overly merciful, people who are overly irritable, and people who are hypersensitive to their environment. To constantly think about everyone in this way would be self-destructive.

But imagine if we could have even half of that sensitivity, not just a sensitivity that tries to avoid harming others, but a sensitivity that stops every once in a while and says, “I hope he’s all right,” “I hope I’m doing enough for her.” This would be a wonderful advance in our Judaism and our humanity.


I hope that others here will be inspired to enter a relationship like this, to sign up for a soldier, even if it just means saying one chapter of tehillim or giving one dollar to tzedakah or doing just one mitzvah on his behalf. There is a sheet in the lobby, with the email address and phone number.

It would be a big deal for the soldier, and I hope it would turn out to be a big deal for you as well.


At the close of his life, as we read this morning,Yaakov gathered his children and offered them messages which spoke to the unique character of each one. One was a leader, another needed to work on his temper. One was destined to produce merchant sailors, another would produce scholars, and so on.

This strikes me as a bit odd - why did Yaakov gather all of them together for this moment? Why did Yaakov say, “הקבצו ושמעו, Come together as a group,” to hear such personal messages en masse? Would it not have been more sensitive to convey his thoughts one-on-one?

Perhaps Yaakov did have separate meetings as well; we know that he did it with Yosef. But the group message was important too, to reinforce this message that I have learned from Adam ben Gila: We are all unique. We all have our own character, and our own destiny. But הקבצו ושמעו, Gather together and hear it together, because, in the end, we are all one.

-
Notes:
1. Feel free to pray and perform mitzvot for Adam ben Gila, too. This is not an exclusive relationship.

2. The email address for this project is maortlmo@gmail.com. The phone number is 212-929-1525 ext 100. Tizku l'mitzvot!

3. The war with Midian is in Bamidbar 31. The midrash is Midrash Tanchuma to Matot, #4. The gemara on giving tzedakah for another's health is Rosh HaShanah 4a, and the gemara on overly merciful people not enjoying life is Pesachim 113b, as explained by Rashbam there.

4. There is much more to say on ערבות, of course, and I have said some of it in other speeches, but I wanted this one to be simple and to the point. Besides, it's after 1 PM on a short Friday.

A Gaza Chronology that covers more than the past two weeks

I am so tired of seeing journalists embarrass themselves pretending they know anything about Gaza's history. The problem, I think, is that their Google searches only return recent articles. Digging past the first page of results seems to be hard work.

Here to help them, then: A collection of articles dating back to the 2005 Disengagement, to review what has happened since then.

AUGUST 12 2005 - A Foundation purchases Gaza greenhouses for the Palestinians
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A private foundation has raised $14 million to buy most of the greenhouses in Jewish settlements in Gaza, a representative of former Israeli Knesset member Yossi Beilin said Friday.
The Economic Cooperation Foundation will transfer the money to the settlers and the greenhouses will be handed over to the Palestinian Authority.
The money was raised by International Quartet special envoy James Wolfensohn, a former World Bank president who also contributed $500,000 of his money.
Beilin is one of the heads of the foundation and was involved in the talks.
The announcement of the deal comes three days before the Israeli government will officially inform 9,000 Israeli Jews in 21 settlements in Gaza and four small settlements in the West Bank that they must leave as part of the government's disengagement plan.


September 13 2005 - Gazans demolish and loot what Israel left them
GAZA CITY (CNN)-
Palestinians rushed into former Jewish settlements in Gaza on Monday after the last Israeli troops withdrew. Most of the housing in Gaza had been flattened by the Israelis, but Palestinians set fire to abandoned synagogues and other public buildings.
Palestinian Authority security forces did not move to stop the crowds even though Abbas said the plan was to turn the former synagogues and other public buildings into community facilities for the Palestinians.


February 12, 2006 - Palestinian representative in the US insists that Hamas will act responsibly
BLITZER: Well, is it realistic to assume that Putin and other Russians might be able to influence Hamas to accept those conditions that the Israelis, the U.S. and others have put forward, that they accept Israel and that they renounce terrorism.

SAFIEH: I believe that Hamas is going to behave with great responsibility, surprising many.


May 1, 2006 - Gaza envoy Wolfensohn resigns, says issues 'above my pay grade'
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- James Wolfensohn, the U.S. special envoy for Gaza disengagement, is stepping down from that position, he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Monday.
Wolfensohn, the former head of the World Bank, said that the issues at work in the Mideast have now gone "above my pay grade."
"With the government of Hamas having taken over with the Palestinians, it's a very difficult movement to be able to try and negotiate any independent type of arrangements that would affect the future of Gaza and the West Bank, because of the emphasis that Hamas puts on the destruction of the state of Israel and the less-than-communicative relationship with that state," he said in a joint appearance with Rice.
Rice agreed that the work needed now in the region is beyond that of a special envoy, and she said she was not seeking a replacement for Wolfensohn. (Posted 7:43 p.m.)


May 18 2007 Israel warns of harsh response to Hamas rockets
GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Israel's response to rockets launched from Gaza into its cities has been "measured" so far but could grow harsher if the attacks continue, Israel's ambassador to the United States said Friday.
"The basic contract between a government and its citizens is to provide them with safety," Sallai Meridor told reporters.
Israel launched more airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza on Friday, the second day it targeted the militant group in retaliation for dozens of rockets it says have been fired from Gaza into Israel during the last several days...
Israel said Qassam rockets launched from Gaza hit a school and a synagogue in Sderot, near Israel's border with Gaza. Two other rockets hit a home and nearly hit a gas station, the military said. Officials said more than 90 rockets from Gaza have landed in Israel since Tuesday.


March 3 2008 - Israel Withdraws Troops from Gaza after entering to destroy rocket launchers
Israeli infantry started withdrawing from the town of Jebalya after midnight following several days of fighting, the military said, but the government vowed it would continue its offensive against rocket squads…
Despite the lopsided death toll, Hamas sent a message to reporters calling the pullout a retreat by the "cowardly'' Israeli military. But Israel said the withdrawal didn't signal it was scaling back its Gaza operations.
"Our efforts against the rocket launchers and those who operate them will continue unabated until Israeli children will no longer be attacked while sitting in their own classrooms, and until their families can sit in their own homes without fear of a rocket crashing through their roof,'' government spokesman David Baker said.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said a full-scale invasion was still possible, and Israel might try to bring down the regime of the militant Islamic Hamas. "We will use force to change the situation,'' Barak said at a meeting late Sunday of security commanders, according to a statement from his office.


May 10, 2008 - Rocket launches from Gaza into Israel increase
There has been a steady increase in rocket and mortar launchings from Gaza since Hamas took over in June 2007. There have been approximately 2,000 launches from Gaza since the start of 2008, about the same number as were launched in all of 2007.


It's okay, world media, don't bother thanking me. Just read, please.

Letter to the world: What did you think was going to happen?

[Jack's Update 11 is here.]

Dear world,

I understand that you are concerned about the state of things in Gaza. The rising number of dead terrorists, as well as the death of their human shields, and the photographs coming out of Gaza, are making things uncomfortable for you. It’s hard to ignore all of that devastation, so you are calling for an immediate, this-instant, don’t-make-me-come-up-there-young-man! ceasefire.

But I don’t understand; what did you think was going to happen?

What did you think was going to happen when you pressed Israel to pull every last Jew out of Gaza, and then you watched the population destroy the municipal infrastructure left to them, setting up rocket launchers instead of tending the greenhouses?

What did you think was going to happen when the population of Gaza elected a government which pledged to destroy Israel?

What did you think was going to happen when Hamas and Islamic Jihad sent rocket after rocket into Israeli towns for the past three years?

What did you think was going to happen when Hamas dug tunnels into Egypt, to import Chinese and Iranian missiles?

What did you think was going to happen when you permitted Hamas to hold Israeli Gilad Shalit for years, without so much as a peep about even letting the Red Cross in to see him?

What did you think was going to happen when Israel warned Hamas, repeatedly, that they would invade if need be?

What did you think was going to happen when Hamas terrorists blew themselves up in Israel?

What did you think was going to happen when Hamas violated their ceasefire?

What did you think was going to happen when Hamas used UN equipment to kill Israelis?

What did you think was going to happen as Israeli troops amassed at the border, watching rockets fly into their towns and land in fields and homes and kindergartens?

I ask you these questions because all along, you did nothing.
You failed to condemn the rocketers.
You failed to insist that Hamas live up to its agreements.
You failed to insist that Hamas release, or even treat humanely, Gilad Schalit.
You failed to insist that Hamas acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.
You failed to exert any pressure or express any outrage when Hamas poisoned its children with anti-Israel propaganda.
You failed to protest when Hamas launched mortars from UN schools.

Now, you wake up and protest. Now, you insist that all violence must stop.

Why? Because the dead people are named Mahmoud instead of Moshe? Jewish blood wasn’t enough to make you stir from your living room chairs?

Perhaps, to you, Jewish blood is cheap. Perhaps, to you, a few rockets a day, Jewish children growing up in bomb shelters, just isn’t enough to make you risk your relationships with Arab oil and its associated petro-dollars.

But you should have thought it through.
You should have planned ahead.
You should have realized that the other shoe was going to drop, and you should have put a stop to things back then.
We could have avoided all of this, if you would have protested three years ago, or two years ago, or last month.

I don’t know what you were thinking then, but I sure hope you’re going to start thinking now.

Sincerely yours,
A Jew

Letter to Gazans: How do you stomach killing children every day?

Dear Citizens of Gaza,

Damn. And a lot stronger words, too.

The headlines are out - Israeli shell crashes into UN school. The school was being used as a shelter, according to you. You claim 30 are dead in the attack.

There are all sorts of mitigating possiblities, of course:

1) The story may turn out to be as false as the rest of the Hamas propaganda, like that video of a supposed Israeli attack on a Gaza market - that turned out to be a video of Hamas rockets exploding at a parade of their own.

2) I am always mindful, too, of the way Hamas makes up these stories, sometimes embellishing and sometimes creating them outright. You know, photos with the same victim dressed up different ways, and counting the people they have killed on their own (as “collaborators”) as though they were casualties of Israel’s self-defense.

3) And then it’s possible this was just a misfire, like the Israeli tank that misfired and killed three IDF soldiers yesterday.

4) And, of course, I know very well that Hamas loves to use UN equipment to murder Israelis, and that Hamas uses hospitals, mosques and schools for their weapons. We even have this video from 2007 of them firing rockets from a UN school. Certainly, initial Israeli reports that rockets had been fired at Israel from that school have strong credibility, with that history.

Update: AP now confirms that Hamas was firing from the school. "The Israeli army said its soldiers came under fire from militants hiding in the school and responded. It accused Gaza's Hamas rulers of "cynically" using civilians as human shields. Residents confirmed the account, saying militants were seen staging attacks from the area." Still terrible - but now much more understandable. (h/t Jameel)

But until I know the whole story, I’m going to be unable to rest or focus or concentrate, or even breathe. The idea of killing people - and, potentially, children - is a horror. It’s one thing to fight back against a terrorist, but killing children is just horrible.

Which makes me wonder: Hamas does this every day, firing rockets into civilian populations, blowing themselves up in cafes, on street corners, you name it. You, Gazans, support this kind of activity.

How do you guys do it? How do you go to sleep at night, knowing that you have massacred children during the day? How do you look at your own children, kiss your sons and daughters Good Night, while your minds still harbor images of a day’s work murdering Israeli kids?

We’re on the ground in Gaza because we don’t have a choice, because we gave and then pleaded and then warned, all to no avail. But you - you guys have a choice. You could accept us as neighbors, and leave us alone.

And you choose to murder children?!

Letter to Gaza: Did I misunderstand you?

[Jack's latest (#9.5) is here.]
[New: Jack now has Update #10 available here.]

Dear Citizens of Gaza,

This is harsher than my usual fare, and I apologize, but after so many days of reading such absurd anti-Israel hypocrisy, I'm about fed up.

1) First you tried to kill us by sending suicide bombers. You recruited teenagers and mothers, even developmentally disabled people, and sent them to kill themselves in an attempt to blow up my family.

I thought I understood what you were saying - that your lives are cheap, and you would gladly give them up in order to fight Israel.


2) Then we decided that rather than fight with you, we would leave Gaza altogether. You could have it. Acres and dunams of land, buildings, greenhouses, roads, infrastructure, whatever you like. We evicted thousands of Jews from their homes, and turned those homes over to you. But rather than capitalize on your new wealth, you destroyed it. Something about making a point, I think, but it was hard to hear what you were saying over the sounds of your celebratory gunfire.

I thought I understood what you were saying - that your lives are cheap, your chance at wealth and a free life to be given away in war with us.


3) Then you elected a Hamas government that declared outright that it would never accept a State of Israel on a single square centimeter of land in "Palestine." You would rather fight to the death.

I thought I understood you: You wanted to fight to the death, and that's why you elected these guys.


4) Then you kidnapped Gilad Shalit, and told us that if we wanted him back, we would have to turn over 500 terrorists. Or maybe it was 400. Or maybe it was 1000. I forget; the numbers kept changing.

I thought I understood the basic offer, though: 500 Gazan lives for 1 Israeli life.


5) Then you invited Israel to come invade. You said you would gladly give your lives in battle.

I thought that was pretty clear, too. You said you were willing to die. There may have been something in there about virgins, or raisins, or something; my Arabic isn't as good as it used to be.


So let's review:
1) You send suicide bombers to kill yourselves fighting us.
2) You destroy the wealth we give you, in order to make a statement about us.
3) You elect a government that pledges eternal war against us.
4) You say that one Israeli life is worth five hundred Gazan lives.
5) You invite us to invade.

That made me think you would be thrilled to see us come over there. So why all the crying and tears?

What did you think was going to happen when you said and did all of those things?

I think perhaps we should accept your bargain. 500 terrorists for every Israeli life. So we should count up every Israeli killed at the hands of Hamas so far, and then take 500 of yours for each one. You drive a hard bargain, but you've got yourself a deal.

Sincerely yours.

Pontificating on Gaza, Michael Lerner still married to Oslo

[Jack's Update #9 is here.]

As the war in Gaza continues, England's TimesOnline has a column here by Rabbi Michael Lerner, insisting on the Lerner peace plan - everyone recognize everyone else, open all borders, release all terrorists, and promise not to shoot at each other. The UN will monitor the deal. Then everyone will be fine.

This is sheer foolishness, of course; Hamas didn't start this in order to permit Israel to live in peace. They have already established that they will attack every time they get the chance, with or without pretext. The prisoners are not in jail for jaywalking, folks. And the UN is not an honest broker.

But this is old news. Like the entire Peace Now movement, Michael Lerner is too committed to Oslo - his major lifetime achievement - to move on. Here is relevant material from a column I ran in the Allentown Morning Call on another occasion when Lerner made his peace proposal, back in 2002:

Rabbi Michael Lerner finds himself in an awkward position. Once a feted advisor to Hillary Clinton, who paid tribute to his “Politics of Meaning” movement in a 1993 speech on healthcare, he now finds himself a man without a movement. The result is a man who embraces Oslo instead of turning toward the future.

A staunch proponent of the 1993 Oslo Accords – indeed, an honored attendee of the White House signing – he is now alone in embracing those poisonous documents. The Palestinians rejected the Oslo Accords just days later, when Chairman Arafat entered Rafah Terminal in Gaza smuggling in Mamduh Nofal, head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Kalashnikov rifles. The Israelis took eight years to reject the Accords, re-entering the territories in response to months of terrorism. The Americans left the table in June of 2002, when President Bush denounced Chairman Arafat before the world. That leaves a lonely Michael Lerner holding the Oslo pen.

Lerner was also a key advisor to President Clinton, whose team offered Chairman Arafat the world in 2000, only to be rebuffed. When Clinton offered 97% of the land, the Palestinians protested that there was no attached map to guarantee contiguousness, even as they demanded an East-West corridor which would split Israel in half to connect Gaza and the West Bank. Chairman Arafat walked away, President Clinton walked away, negotiator Dennis Ross walked away – and, again, Michael Lerner was left holding the pen. Michael Lerner refuses to admit the errors of Oslo; instead, he is using that pen to resuscitate Oslo.

On July 11, 2002, The Allentown Morning Call published Rabbi Lerner’s naive prescription of “Tough Love” for the Israelis. He excoriated the Israelis for defending themselves against terrorism, and he recommended three Oslo-like steps toward peace:
(1) A United Nations force to protect the Israelis and Palestinians from each other,
(2) A pact of mutual defense to guarantee US defense of Israelis and Palestinians, and
(3) An international conference to impose a solution.
Like the Oslo Accords, which collapsed due to lack of trust and irresponsible international support for the Palestinian Authority, so Rabbi Lerner’s approach will fail. Let’s look at each element of his plan:

1) Establishment of a UN force – This could never be tolerated by any Israeli government. How could they forget that Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser evicted the “protective” UN troops in 1967, as a preface to his closing of the Straits of Tiran and, ultimately, the 1967 war?
In 2000, UN “peacekeepers” along the Lebanon border videotaped Hezbollah terrorists as they kidnapped Israelis and made their getaway; the UN even refused to turn over the videotape to the Israeli government. The UN cannot be trusted to protect Israel’s interests.

2) A mutual defense pact with the US – A lack of trust undermines this. Palestinians regularly use mortars to attack Israeli cities and farms, Hizbollah fires Katyusha rockets from Lebanon, and the Syrians and Iraqis arm missiles with chemical warheads. What will a mutual defense pact accomplish once Israel has been decimated in an initial assault from all sides? Further, will the United States send warplanes halfway around the world every time a terrorist shoots into a school, blows up a bus, or performs one of the innumerable other acts which have now become commonplace?

3) International conference – Michael Lerner’s approach smacks of racist Rudyard Kipling paternalism. Does he think the Palestinians and Israelis are desert children, ignorant natives who need to be led by his esteemed leadership? There are real issues involved between the parties, real grievances and real claims, and the suggestion that everyone simply follow an imposed view is arrogant beyond belief.

There is an ancient Talmudic adage: “Do not bow to your own words.” Rabbi Lerner should finally understand that it is all right for him to let go of the Oslo pen. The history of the past fifteen years has shown that those agreements were misguided. Israel ended its presence in the West Bank and Gaza years ago, came back in order to defend themselves, and then expressed a sincere desire to work with Palestinian leadership; let the violence end, and then let diplomacy begin anew.

Here are some relevant links:
Michael Lerner and Hillary Clinton in 1993

Michael Lerner at Oslo

Yasser Arafat smuggling in a terrorist and weapons after Oslo

The Palestinian charge of contiguity at Camp David

UN peacekeepers' withdrawal from the Sinai in 1967

United Nations peacekeepers videotape kidnapping of Israeli soldiers

Four lies about Israel and Gaza

[Click here for Jack's latest Gaza update (#8). Click here for this week's Haveil Havalim, which includes many posts on Gaza.]

I've noticed four lies repeated persistently by anti-Israelis on-line; here are the lies and their refutations.


1. The lie: "Israel is using white phosphorus against civilians in Gaza."
According to the Geneva Convention, white phosphorus may not be used against civilians. SOTT, among other anti-Israel sites, shows a photo which it claims is an example of White Phosporus use against civilians in Gaza; see it here. They provide no evidence, only the allegation, coupled with statements about Israel shelling Gaza in general.

In truth, though, the photo comes from this Guardian article (I won't waste time wondering whether they paid a fee to the Guardian or AP for the picture)... and the article makes no mention of white phosphorus, or civilians for that matter, in relation to that picture.

Update: I have now seen the AP's original picture, and compared it to other photos of white phosphorus shells. It is possible that this is white phosphorus - however, the photo shows clearly that this is not a civilian area. Per the photo, and per the AP blurb as well, it's an open area near the Israel/Gaza border.

Here is the AP blurb: "A shell fired by the Israeli military explodes in the northern Gaza Strip as seen from the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009. Israeli warplanes, gunboats and artillery units blasted more than 40 dozen Hamas targets Saturday, including weapons storage facilities, training centers and leaders' homes as Israel's offensive against Gaza's Islamic militant rulers entered a second week. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)"


2. The lie: "Israel is bombing Gaza indiscriminately."
This lie appears here, among other places:
Michael Hudson, professor of international relations at Georgetown University said that by backing Israel's position the US was opening itself up to attack. "If you're identified with an Israel that is bombing indiscriminately and disproportionately, this is really good for Osama Bin laden, it's good for extremists all across the region and I fear that Americans as well as Israelis will now suffer," he told Al Jazeera.

The truth, though, is fairly clear: Considering the fact that Israel has flown hundreds of sorties over a population of 1.5 million people, I think it's fairly clear that "bombing indiscriminately" would have resulted in thousands of casualties, and not the few hundred Hamasniks who have been killed.


3. The lie: "Israel is using depleted uranium shells in Gaza."
This is an old Arab canard; they've used it against Israel in every war they've ever had. This time it's put forth by Dr. Mads Gilbert, a visiting physician and, apparently, now a weapons expert.

Check out this site, though, to see what the UN concluded when they investigated the same claim in Lebanon. No use whatsoever.


4. The lie: "Israel is blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza."
We've seen this one claimed all over the Net, including this clever use of Yahoo Answers for propaganda purposes.

Too bad for them that sites like this show Israel bringing in the aid, huh?

Unless, of course, you think Israel was blocking aid by refusing to allow Cynthia McKinney's ship to land in Gaza. But if you actually believe they were bringing aid rather than political theater, then I must acknowledge that there will be no convincing you of anything related to reality.

Update: And here's a possible fifth lie. CNN reports here that the Palestinian death toll is up to 485 - but does it include the 35 "collaborators" killed by Hamas the other day on suspicion that they would aid Israeli forces?

Another casualty of Bernard Madoff: The definition of “Jew”

[Jack's Gaza Update 7.5 is here.]

This is a dated topic, but the column I submitted to the Allentown Morning Call on the topic just ran today. Below is the text:

As a child, I didn’t know that the word “jew” could be used as a verb, that millions of people the world over believed that my family and I were, by dint of our ancestry, avaricious, unethical scoundrels. Instead, I was always taught that Judaism was a religion of ethics and honesty.

In school and synagogue and home, rabbis and parents inculcated in my peers and in me the biblical lesson (Deuteronomy 16:20), “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” The Talmud (Shabbat 31a) warned us that the first question a Jew will be asked in the afterworld is, “Did you engage in commerce honestly.” Jewish law (Tosefta, Chullin 2:24) demanded of us, “Distance yourself from ugly behavior, and from anything that might resemble ugly behavior.” Ethical behavior was inseparable from the laws of kosher, Shabbat and family purity.

As I entered adolescence, though, I saw people throw pennies at Jews to insult their supposed greed. I studied the Merchant of Venice and heard the Christian tale of the betrayal of Jesus, read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and saw copies of vicious Nazi and Muslim propaganda cartoons. I was accosted by a group of teens in a Long Island Rail Road car; they informed me that “Jews buy Sprite because it’s cheap.” Even some Jews displayed this malignant view of their own ethnicity and religion; seven years ago, then-Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Ed Rendell, a Jew, quoted his father’s observation that “the guys who spend the longest time in synagogues on Saturdays are the biggest crooks Monday through Friday.” And so I learned that, indeed, much of the world didn’t translate “Jew” as I did.

Many Jews fight this malicious rendering of “Jew” by promoting the Torah’s ethical instructions. From The Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem to the Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University in New York to Bais haVaad l’Inyonei Mishpat in Lakewood, New Jersey, to many similar efforts, Jews devote significant time, effort and, yes, money, to sustaining righteous behavior among Jews. Particular Jewish individuals stand out for their achievements in this area as well; from philanthropists to political leaders to jurists to unheralded businessmen, there are many positive ethical role models within in the Jewish community.

But despite these efforts, every new Jew-related scandal reinforces the negative stereotype and negates the positive work of all of those institutions and individuals. Whether a Michael Milken or an Ivan Boesky, a Sholom Rubashkin or a Bernard Madoff, it seems that, every year, one or two Jews gain notoriety for their criminality and thereby reinforce in the mind of many the old message that the Jew is unethical, the Jew is self-serving, the Jew is greedy. Never mind that the behavior of one man or even a handful of people cannot possibly be brought as proof of the character of millions. Never mind that Madoff has single-handedly destroyed many, many charities which served Jewish causes. The image that remains in the eyes of the world is that this Jew bilked people out of billions of dollars.

This wound is, to me, Bernard Madoff’s deepest crime and most lasting legacy. I fear that years after the people who lost their money are gone, generations after the charitable foundations and the people they served are gone, this scandalous rendering of “Jew” will remain in the popular lexicon - and Bernard Madoff will be cited as proof.

By nature and training, I try to look for some positive result even in the midst of devastation. It’s hard to find any upbeat note in this cacophany of destruction.. but, perhaps, there will be one, small, positive result: I and others will feel all the more compelled to preach to our communities, and to teach to our children, that most basic of Jewish lessons (Leviticus 20:7): “You shall sanctify yourselves, and you shall be sanctified, for I am the Lord your God.”

You can see the column itself here; the anti-Jewish comments on it are remarkable, and underscore the damage done by Madoff.

Israel is acquired through suffering (Derashah Vayyigash 5769)

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai predicted it, during the Roman era of two thousand years ago. He said, “שלש מתנות טובות נתן הקב"ה לישראל, וכולן לא נתנן אלא על ידי יסורין. אלו הן: תורה וארץ ישראל ועולם הבא.” “HaShem gave the Jewish people three gifts - Torah, Israel and Olam HaBa - but none of them may be acquired without יסורין, without suffering.”

And what a long parade of suffering it has been. Three generations of slavery in Egypt. Forty years of desert wandering. Even two thousand years of exile were not sufficient, apparently. 1929. 1948. 1967. 1973. 1981. 1990. 2000. 2006. And now 2008. This week, once again, we have seen that suffering that comes hand-in-hand with living in our land. Rockets strike kindergartens and high schools, young men and women stand ready to march into the deathtrap that is Aza…

And these are only the highlights, the points when the powderkeg ignited, as opposed to the years in between of hijackings and suicide bombings.

Yes, these יסורין continue.


But what is the value of these יסורין, why does the Torah guarantee that the Jew, through the ages, will be forced to experience trauma before he may receive his territorial heritage? Our sages have offered three classic explanations:


The Maharal of Prague, writing almost five centuries ago, offered what many consider the obvious explanation: The Jew must endure pain in order to purify himself from his sins, such that he will deserve to tread upon this sacred earth.

A midrash seems to say as much, comparing the יסורין inflicted upon the Jew who would live in Israel with the יסורין a parent inflicts upon a child in order to refine his behavior.


Rabbeinu Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, in the 19th century, suggested a second understanding: Self-sacrifice is a test of our loyalty and commitment to the land of Israel.

Just as one who wishes to convert to Judaism must demonstrate sincere, enduring commitment to Gd, to Torah and to the Jewish people, so the Jew who wishes to acquire his share in Israel must demonstrate that his four cubits in this land mean more to him than four cubits in any other land on earth. Avraham was once summoned to sacrifice that which was most dear to him, and his descendants have been held to that same standard.


And there is a third layer: Rav Shmuel Eidels, also known as Maharsha, explained back in the 17th century that our historic privation is a lesson in the very purpose of Israel.

Lest we think that we have been given Israel for its beautiful beaches, for its wine country, for the hills of Yehudah or the mountains of the Galil or the shores of the Kinneret, these יסורין teach us that Israel is not to be the Cancun of the Middle East, some spa for physical pleasure. Rather, it is a center for spiritual growth.


I must admit that this feels cold, this philosophy of assigning national meaning to the individual pain of a bombing victim, an ambushed soldier, a parent whose child is missing in action. We are not normally a religion that reads the mind of Gd, identifying motives for the suffering of individuals.

But the Maharal, Rabbeinu Yosef Chaim, the Maharsha and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, giants of Judaism, did develop this philosophy. They believed that this is the way we are to understand the suffering we have endured in the name of this land: That it purifies us, that it pushes us to demonstrate our sincere commitment to the land, that it ensures we will properly appreciate Israel as a place of spiritual growth.

Therefore: A Jew who wishes to embrace the land of Israel must be prepared to confront pain, and overcome it. And without it, he cannot claim ownership of the land.


Witness the covenant extracted from the tribes of Gad and Reuven, when they wished to monopolize the portion of Israel on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Gd required that they cross the Jordan and aid their brethren in settling Israel itself, before they could return to the land to the east.

Why did Gd require this of Gad and Reuven? The conquest of Israel was engineered miraculously, so what difference would it make whether the tribes of Reuven and Gad fought, or sat it out?

It wasn’t for the sake of military success - it was for the sake of Gad and Reuven themselves. It was about their Yisurin, the suffering that would earn them a portion in this land. If the tribes of Reuven and Gad would endure the difficulties, then they could have a stake in Israel - whether the land east of the Jordan or the land to the west. But if they would not endure the difficulty of acquiring Israel, then they would own no true stake in that land.


Which leaves us, outside of Israel, in trouble.
• We lack the purification that comes with suffering.
• We have not passed the test of sincerity that comes with enduring great difficulties.
• We have yet to learn the lesson of Israel’s spiritual nature that comes with material privation.

In short - like Reuven and Gad if they remain on the eastern side of the Jordan - we have not undergone the yisurin. So how do we gain a share in Israel?

In truth, the answer is that we don’t gain a share. There is no substitute for those Yisurin; we are not earning what the Jews in Israel are earning, no matter how close we feel to our family there, no matter how loudly we yell at the television commentators, no matter how compulsively we refresh the Jerusalem Post homepage on our computer.

Nonetheless, there are things we can do, actions with which we can contribute positively to the war effort, ways we can help אחינו בני ישראל deal with their יסורין, and so, in some small way, claim to have dealt with these יסורין ourselves.

First, we can daven on behalf of the IDF, and the situation in general.

Second, we can engage in hasbara, explaining the Israeli position.
o This is not a minor endeavor; American public opinion matters to our politicians, and therefore it influences American government policy toward Israel. How much pressure or how little pressure the US administration exerts upon Israel depends largely on their perception of the thinking of the average American citizen.
o For those who are Internet-savvy, there are many venues for this sort of debate. Whether on blogs or Twitter or Reddit or Digg or CNN’s comment pages or a million other places, the battle is on for public opinion, and the results matter.
o This can happen in person, in discussions at work or the grocery store or anywhere we hear Israel being discussed. And anyone can do it - even people who are not 100% behind Israeli policies, people who think the avenues of diplomacy with Hamas were not exhausted, can recognize and defend Israel’s basic right to defend itself.
o When we hear people say, “Israel’s response is disproportionate,” we can respond, “What do you consider a proportionate response to people who rocket kindergartens?”
o When we hear people say, “There is a humanitarian disaster in Gaza,” we can respond, “These people elected Hamas on a platform of rocketing Israel, and they publicly supported firing those rockets right up until Israeli air raids began last week.”
o If you aren’t familiar with the issues, we have copies of Mitchell Bard’s classic “Myths and Facts” book in the library, and sheets in the lobby listing websites where you can get more information.

And third, we are able to support the soldiers and the ambulance corps.
o There are websites, Pizzaidf.org and Burgeridf.org, which bring care packages of food to soldiers at the front lines, including at the Gaza border.
o National Council of Young Israel has an on-going “Support the IDF Troops Campaign,” and they take donations on-line. https://www.youngisrael.org/securecontent/donate.cfm
o United Hatzalah of Israel is taking contributions for emergency medical equipment on-line, as well. http://www.unitedhatzalah.org/


One additional point: There is another reason for us to become involved in hasbara and for us to donate to support the IDF, besides sharing in their yisurin.

In his classic essay, Kol Dodi Dofek, Rav Soloveitchik wrote regarding Israel’s War of Independence, “For the first time in the history of our exile, divine providence has surprised our enemies with the sensational discovery that Jewish blood is not free for the taking, is not hefker [ownerless]!”

Rav Soloveitchik’s words ring powerfully in our own day, not only as a rebuke to our enemies but also as a rebuke to ourselves. Do we truly believe that Jewish blood is not free for the taking? Do we truly believe that Jewish blood is not hefker? If so, then we bear the responsibility of standing together with our brethren and shouldering whatever portion of their burden extends to our position in exile.

Whether by davening or by arguing for Israel or by sending contributions, we will illuminate our world with this news: כל ישראל ערבין זה בזה, All Jews are responsible for each other, all Jews stand together. Like Yehudah standing up for Binyamin in this morning’s parshah, we will ensure that the blood of our family will not be free for the taking. And when we demonstrate this for ourselves, when we make the sensational discovery that Jewish blood is not hefker, for ourselves, then the rest of the world will be forced to realize it as well.

-
Notes:
1. R' Shimon bar Yochai is Berachos 5a. The Midrash I cite (linking yisurin to parental discipline) is in Shmos Rabbah 1:1. The Maharal is in Netivot Olam (II) - Netiv haYisurin Chapter 2. Rabbeinu Yosef Chaim, aka Ben Ish Chai, is in the Ben Yehoyada to Berachot 5a. The Maharsha is in Chiddushei Aggadot to Berachot 5a.

2. I know Bnei Gad/Reuven receive a share in Israel even if they don't fight, but the idea is that then this share would not truly be their own. For a similar idea, see R' Ben Zion Firer in Midei Shabbat b'Shabbato. As far as my comment about monopolizing the eastern side of the Yarden, see Kiddushin 61a-b.

3. As I note in the derashah itself, I really am very uncomfortable with this direct identification of personal suffering with national fate. But, as I said there, it is an undeniable component of our tradition.

4. Yes, this is another derashah expressing my not-so-latent guilt about living outside of Israel.

Why didn't Disengagement from Gaza work?

As the war in Gaza moves to the conclusion of its fifth day... as thousands of Kassam rockets, as well as Katyusha and Grad rockets, have rained down on Israel since the 2005 disengagement... as the government of Gaza continues to refuse to recognize Israel (as anything other than a target)... I think it's fair to say that Ariel Sharon's Disengagement plan failed.

Why did it fail? Here's a column I published in the Allentown Morning Call in 2005, when Disengagement was just a plan on the drawing board.

In the column I tried to be very balanced:
I didn't assume that anyone's intentions were evil.
I didn't talk about the horror of evicting thousands of families from their homes.
I credited the Palestinians for everything they claimed to be doing, whether I could verify that it was true or not.
In short, I tried to judge the Disengagement plan not from the perspective of a Jew, but from an independent perspective, as though I were the mythical creature known as the unbiased European.

I concluded that any successful peace plan would require:
1) Cooperative governments;
2) Democratic approval by the populations involved;
3) Impartial international support.

Disengagement went 0 for 3, and we can see the results for ourselves.

Here's the column:


Middle East peace process repeats Oslo's failures
Albert Einstein is reputed to have defined Insanity as doing the same thing multiple times but expecting different results. So, I must ask: Does the current round of the Israel-Arab peace process, as a repeat of 1990s' Oslo peace process, fit Einstein's criterion?

Experience teaches that a viable peace process must be supported by three components:
1. Cooperative governments;
2. Democratic approval by all affected populations; and
3. Impartial international support.

None of these components was present for Oslo. Yasser Arafat frequently declared that peace would only be a stepping-stone to a Greater Palestine. There was no democratic approval; Israeli citizens were never permitted to vote on any of their government's offers of land and money, and Palestinian Arabs never voted to approve any changes in their national approach toward Israel. The international community certainly was not impartial; European governments, left-wing Americans and the United Nations perennially insisted that the entire fault for the crisis lay with Israel. The result was seven years of falsely raised hopes, and the past four years of bloody war in Israel. Thousands have been killed, the price of a sloppily arranged ''peace coup.'' Have things changed, or are we madly pursuing the path of ruin again?

There is evidence to support a sunny view. There are signs of a cooperative government on the Palestinian Arab side. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has made concrete moves in the right direction, such as reducing the anti-Israel venom on Palestinian airwaves, and cutting back financial support of terrorist groups.

Israel's government also seems bent on proceeding. It has committed to withdraw from land it viewed in the past as needed for security, and it is refraining from responding to terrorist attacks with military force.

We are a long away from democratic approval on either side, though. True, the process has been more open and transparent than Oslo — which was negotatiated out of the public eye by Shimon Peres and Palestinian Arabs — but neither population has been democratically consulted.

Polls continue to show that the majority of Palestinian Arabs are not committed to any process unless they receive certain demands that Israel has already declared to be off the table — such as resettlement of the extended families of every Arab who ever lived in Israel before 1948.

On the Israeli side, the government has refused to allow a national referendum on whether to transfer Israeli families out of their homes in Gaza. The implications of this move are enormous. Israelis do not have the option of remaining in their homes, so that Gaza will be the only place in the world that is fully judenrein, Jew-free. We wouldn't tolerate that in America, we would file angry protests if it were in Europe, we would rage at it in Saudi Arabia, but Israel is about to engineer this situation itself, willingly, without allowing its population to vote; the needed democratic element isn't there yet.

For the third pillar, the international community, led by the United Nations, is still not involved in an unbiased way. Just last week, the U.N. Security Council took the nearly unprecedented step of condemning the murder of five Israelis — but refused to include the name of the Arab group that carried out the attack, even though the group, Islamic Jihad, actually took credit for the bloody murder.

Similarly, England was host to a March 1 conference, ''The London Meeting on Supporting the Palestinian Authority,'' and even before the conference began the British had decided that the convention's final statement would not mention any obligation by a Palestinian government to prevent attacks on Israelis.

The media are equally to blame, for they sketch an unbalanced portrait of events. One of the catalysts of the war carried on against Israel these past four years was the shooting of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura during a firefight between terrorists and Israeli soldiers in September of 2000. A French cameraman had shot video purporting to show that Israelis shot the boy in cold blood; the pictures were published worldwide, including in The Morning Call. The boy's death became a cause celebré. Both the French paper Le Figaro and The Atlantic Monthly belatedly concluded that the boy was shot by Arab terrorists, but other news outlets, including The Morning Call, have not reported the corrected story.

To term this round of the Israeli-Arab peace process ''insane'' would be premature; there is time, yet, for improvement. But until we see a process between cooperative governments, with democratically involved populations, supported by an unbiased world, we are doomed to a repeat of Oslo's bloody disaster.

And so, here we are...

[For the record: I was hotly criticized by another rabbi, in a Letter to the Editor, for using the term judenrein. But if the shoe fits!]

Behind the United Nations' War on Israel

[Jack's Gaza Roundup, Part Three is here. Great job again, Jack.]

I know there are populations around the world who love the United Nations - after all, who wouldn’t love an organization that pledges to work for peace, that feeds the hungry, that distributes medicine for the sick, that provides comfort for refugees?

But the UN’s habit of beating up on Israel, or aiding those who beat up on Israel, is really wearing on any love I might feel for the world’s policeman.

From the preponderance of UN resolutions against Israel and in favor of those who attack Israel,
to their creation of a special refugee organization just for Palestinians in order to keep them as refugees forever - unlike what they do for any other refugees in the world,
to their formal commemoration of the birth of Israel as Naqba (catastrophe),
to their warm embrace of politicians who call for Israel to be destroyed,
to their "peacekeepers" who have provided support for everyone from Nasser to Arafat to Hizbullah in attacks on Israelis,
the bias is just absurd.

Just look at the "Human Relations Council" of the United Nations. Courtesy of Wikipedia’s article on the Council:
By April 2007, the Council had passed nine resolutions condemning Israel, the only country which it had specifically condemned. By comparison, toward Sudan, a country with severe human rights abuses in Darfur as documented by the Council's work groups, it has only expressed "deep concern." …
The council voted on 30 June 2006 to make a review of possible human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session. The Council’s special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry. The resolution, which was sponsored by Organization of the Islamic Conference, passed by a vote of 29 to 12 with five abstentions…
The Human Rights Council has now passed 60 per cent of its resolutions on Israel alone and nothing, for example, on China and Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia, according to human rights academic Professor Anne Bayefsky.

This is why Israel and her supporters have a hard time taking seriously United Nations calls for the end of hostilities in Gaza. Yes, the UN does a lot of good in some corners of the globe - but their track record in the Middle East is abysmal.

But why does this happen? Why is the UN so committed to a war on Israel? The UN is not evil; rather, I see five major rational causes for their anti-Israel stance:

1) The currency of democracy - Votes and Money
Democracy, including that democratic system which governs UN activity, is supported by two major forces: Votes and Money. Votes are needed to approve initiatives; Money is needed to carry out those initiatives. Since there are more than 20 Arab states, many of which are oil-rich, and there is only one Israel, which has no oil wealth, the UN’s every vote is automatically slanted toward that Arab bloc.

2) The natural desire for a silver bullet
The world is tired of the Middle East and its wars, and would love to have peace. Arab countries promise that if Israel were gone from the region, the Middle East would be at peace. Never mind that Iraq invaded Kuwait without any Israel issue, never mind that Syria controls Lebanon for reasons of greed rather than politics, never mind that Shiites and Sunnis continue to kill each other with or without Israel… the United Nations would love to try for this magic solution to their 60-year headache.

3) Israel must do ugly things to survive
This is simple fact. Fences, air raids, targeted killings of terrorists, checkpoints, and so on - these are ugly, they make for ugly photographs in the press, and they are easy fodder for anti-Israel propaganda. It’s hard for the world to stomach seeing this, even if they start out sympathetic to Israel’s cause.

4) The United States can be an albatross around Israel’s neck
Dating back to Cold War US-USSR rivalries, the United States has long been Israel’s staunchest supporter, and Israel has returned the favor with political and military support. The love goes both ways. And with the United States as Public Enemy #2 in the United Nations, Israel suffers from guilt by association.

5) The United Nations has never accepted Israel’s basic premise for its existence
Certainly, November 1947 was a remarkable moment in time, a moment when many nations united in support of the return of Jews to their historic land - but it was only a moment, and it was driven by motivations that had nothing to do with acceptance of the Jewish narrative. Guilt, greed and political alliances drove that vote, not a noble recognition that Jews deserve to be able to live in the land of their ancestors.
The result is that when those original motivations (guilt, greed, alliances) disappear, and certainly when they apply instead to Arab causes, the support for Israel turns into antagonism against her.

So I fully understand why the UN, an organization led largely by good people with good intentions, is committed to wiping Israel off the map. But please excuse me when I tell them what they can do with their good people and good intentions, their UNRWA and their Naqba and their resolutions. The fact that there is logic behind their anti-Israel bias doesn’t mean I’m going to listen to them.

Message to the UN: Until you can see past your Arab bloc and your simplistic desire for easy answers, until you can put some effort into understanding Israel’s situations, until you can get past your anti-US stance and embrace Israel’s reason for existence, don’t call us.

And, no, we won’t call you.

What is a Refugee Camp?

[Jack's latest update on Gaza is here.]

Over at IsraellyCool, Shukri makes the following comment:
Are you calling the Gazans murderers? Take a look at the places that they live in. Its mostly refugee camps.

"Refugee camps." I love it. The Gazans live in "refugee camps," and therefore it's okay for them to rocket kindergartens and hospitals in Israel.

What is a refugee camp?

Some Arab families have indeed lived in "refugee camps" for sixty years - not because they have to, but because of one or more of the following factors:
a) The local government will not allow them to take citizenship;
b) They are too busy rocketing Israel to build homes on the land they have;
c) The UN has promised them loads of cash in exchange for agreeing to stay in those camps;
d) They like being able to tell the world they are waiting to return to "their land" in the Ottoman Empire.

Reading the above, I realize that some of it sounds harsh - but it’s also the truth.

First, Arab nations have refused to grant citizenship to these "refugees" -
To cite the well-footnoted Wikipedia article, "Palestinian Refugees":
In 1957, the Refugee Conference at Homs, Syria, passed a resolution stating that "Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not be based on ensuring the refugees' right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason."
The Arab League issued instructions barring the Arab states from granting citizenship to Palestinian Arab refugees (or their descendants) "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland".
Iraqis kill them, Syria refuses to grant them citizenship and will not permit the ones fleeing from Iraq to enter, Kuwait has kicked them out, Egypt has kicked them out, Lebanon denies them citizenship and Jordan keeps more than one million of them in camps. Israel should have greater rachmanus than these Arab countries? Let the refugees fire rockets into Egypt!

Second, they are too busy rocketing Israel to build homes on the land they do have.
There is quite a bit of undeveloped land in Gaza. For that matter, when Israel left Gaza in 2005 they abandoned homes, towns, greenhouses and infrastructure. However, because the Palestinians chose to demolish and loot what was given to them, and because they have spent more time rocketing than reconstructing, we have these "refugees."

Third, the UN has promised them plenty of cash, so long as they stay in these camps.
The United Nations has a special branch dedicated to this purpose: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This is a relief and human development agency, providing education, health care, social services and emergency aid to over four million Palestinian refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
So any resettlement and normalization of life results in the loss of UN benefits.
Note, by the way: There is no dedicated agency for Jews who were exiled from Arab lands in 1948.

And fourth, they like being able to tell the world they are waiting to return to "their land" in the Ottoman Empire.
This, to me, speaks for itself.

And there you have it - these are your refugees, and their refugee camps, and their justification for attacking Israel.

Any questions?

Community Rabbi, reporting from Gaza

[Haveil Havalim is here.]
[Jack's roundup of Gaza-related posts is here.]

In my pre-adolescent years, my outlook on Rabbis-and-Current-Events was shaped by my father’s dislike for speeches that spent more time on the New York Times than on the parshah.

For a long time I actually assumed that this was a broadly held view; after all, why would anyone expect a rabbi to have special insight into the Falklands War, Afghanistan, the Iran Hostage Crisis or any of the other events that shaped my 70s and 80s upbringing? So much so that when I did my very first interview for a rabbinic position - a synagogue in Worcester, Massachusetts - and someone asked how often I would speak about current events, I said I would do it maybe once a month, if that much.

This was not the answer my questioner was seeking; he, and others present, felt that in order for Torah to be relevant to their daily lives, the rabbi would have to speak about Yitzhak Rabin more often than he would speak about Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, about modern Israel more than historical Eretz Yisrael.

Relevance! That was actually a key moment for me, as I was taught what "relevance" means to so many Jews. Upon reflection, I grasped what he was saying (although I didn’t grasp the job…). It made sense; even if I wasn’t a brilliant economist or an expert on the Far East, my connecting Torah to the comments of those economists and experts would make shul, Torah, Judaism as a whole, more reachable for many people.

In the years since that watershed evening, I have spent a great deal of time reading about topics of popular interest, from the European stock market to Central American history to the history of medical understanding of the circulatory system to quantum theory and Hadley cells and meteorology. Much of that has become useful in classes or newspaper columns or in direct conversation; some of it has simply made me a broader person.

And yet, and yet - I have never quite shaken the feeling that rabbis are overstepping when they comment, whether in shul or in published articles or in interviews, on the events of the day. Lead tehillim, promote activism, but don't interpret the news. My father’s skepticism remains with me.

And so last night, when Shabbos ended and I picked up a phone message from 69 News asking for me to do an interview on Gaza, I was reluctant to reply. Really - what am I going to say, that the viewer doesn’t already know? The analogy of Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli cities to rocket attacks on LA or Detroit has been cited everywhere. The viewers who don’t care to remember Disengagement aren’t going to remember it because I mention it. I feel foolish even blogging about it; go check out Jameel, his on-the-scene comments have much more relevance than mine.

But, remembering that night in Worcester, I called the reporter back. As it turned out, though, I was too late; in the intervening hours since their Shabbos afternoon call, they had found another candidate.

I expect I will draft an Op-Ed for the local paper, though. As Shemuel said to Shaul, "הלא אם קטן אתה בעיניך ראש שבטי ישראל אתה - Even if you are small in your own eyes, you are yet the head of the tribes of Israel." I am, to some people, a commnunity representative. So if someone out there takes my view seriously, then I am responsible to make it heard.

Kassams, Air Strikes, Gaza Invasion, UN Resolutions, Withdrawal, Kassams... and then what?

I've lost track of how many “Now we've had it” operations we've seen over the years. There was Lebanon in the summer of '06, after Hizballah kidnapped soldiers. There was a massive raid in the West Bank four or five years ago, after a series of terrorist massacres; that was when the IDF confined Arafat to his Muqata. And before that, and before that...

The problem is straightforward: We have to do something, but there's nothing to do.

To sit on our hands while thugs bomb our cities is suicidal madness. Certainly, they lack the means to destroy our country. But the psychological toll on a population under threat is huge. They count on it – that's why they launch the kassams. Their goal is to make Israelis want to get out. Not out of Gaza, but out of Israel.

So we need to do something... but what?

Diplomacy is meaningless. You're talking to people whose declared goal is to eliminate you. Your goals run directly counter to theirs. So how can you gain their support for your vision? To borrow from Ury, how to Get to Yes?

Threatening bluster is just that, bluster. It accomplishes nothing, the equivalent of a frustrated cry at a television screen or computer monitor.

Sanctions do nothing, because the people running the show in Gaza are happy to let the people suffer. They enjoy it, knowing it brings headlines and international sympathy.

And so we are left with military force, with airstrikes and a ground assault and a lot of burned out buildings and dead bodies and UN resolutions.

Eventually, because this operation will run true to the same pattern we have seen every time before, because this Israeli government has no strategy, no goal, no benchmark of success or definition of victory, the troops will pull back. Hamas will launch a few missiles to show it still can, to save face, to declare triumphant victory.

And the rockets will resume.

And we'll be back where we started from.

And who know where Gilad Schalit will be?

"Bless this our country, the United States of America"

There is a near-universal practice, in traditional Orthodox synagogues, of blessing the local government and praying to Gd to provide it counsel and support. From East Asia to Russia to Europe to North and South America, in languages varied and with diverse texts, Jews call upon Gd to benefit the lands in which they live. (I'm not sure about Africa.) There are many motivations for this practice, including simple gratitude, a recognition that all citizens benefit from law and order, and a solicitous desire to demonstrate patriotism.

Our shul recites a version that appears in the siddur (prayer book) compiled by Rabbi David deSola Pool several decades ago. This prayer begins, “Heavenly Father, bless this our country, the United States of America.”

The “Heavenly Father” invocation is always jarring for first-timers, but it makes sense as a translation of Avinu sheBashamayim – and it is certainly less offensive to the Jewish ear than a more literal rendition: “Our Father who art in Heaven.”

The more jarring part of that opening line, for many, is the word our. If we term America “our country,” is that a demotion of Israel, and/or a rejection of the fundamental Jewish longing for the arrival of Mashiach and kibbutz galuyot, the ingathering of Jews to Israel?

I've mulled and debated this question for the past seven-plus years, and overall I have made my peace with this dubious “our.” The word describes a relationship, yes, but not in an exclusive sense. In my view, our accurately describes both our relationship with Israel and our relationship with America.

If "our" described ownership, I would reject this our; there is only one Jewish land. But, to my mind, “our” is less a statement of possession than a statement of loyalty and responsibility. Our families, our homes, our lives, our careers, our friends – these are ours which are less about owning than about being owned, more about fealty than about property. In this sense, both lands are “our” lands, for both lands may rightfully claim our hearts and our powers.

Israel is “our” country in the sense that it is the only land which is truly attached to a Jew. It is the land in which our genetic and spiritual ancestors lived, loved, worshipped, were born, died and were buried. As we have been taught for millenia, it is the true locus for all that is Judaism, the theater where mitzvot have their greatest meaning as well as application, the earthly soil where a Jew can most fully connect to the Divine. Israel has been promised to us, and we have been promised to it; this land lodges a claim upon our lives as great and as permanent as our own claim upon its soil.

But America is also “our” country, in the sense that it is the land which absorbed us, which afforded us the freedom to live as Jews when no other polity would do likewise; which came, over the course of centuries, to recognize Jews as worthy of education and position and political authority; which bucked the trend of human history and divested religion of government imprimatur and military enforcement; which provided social and economic support for the founding of some of the most vibrant Jewish communities and Torah yeshivot in the world.

More: American values heavily influenced the founders of the modern state of Israel, and American ideology yet recognizes the kinship between the two lands; this connection is another strand in this “our.”

Certainly, my heart - and, one day soon, Gd-willing, my body - is in Israel.
Certainly, the relationship between sectarian Jew and universalist United States, and between America and Israel, is perennially conflicted and inherently insecure.
Certainly, not every government and governor has been as generous of heart toward the descendants of Avraham and Sarah.
Indeed, I am penning this essay on a day when the vast majority of my neighbors celebrate the birth of a man whose ideology I declare anathema, and whose theological descendants have massacred millions of my kin over the past two thousand years.
Still, for all of the reasons above, there is little doubt in my mind that America, even on the twenty-fifth of December, is “our” land.

And so I continue to bless “this our country.” When new people enter our shul, I continue to explain to them, to the best of my ability, why I agree with “our.” And when I spend Shabbos in a different community, one which does not verbalize an “our” in its prayer for the government, in my own mind this expression of loyalty and responsibility still attaches itself to the name of that more perfect union, “our country, the United States of America.”

I am so bad at rabbinic vacations

One of the most cliché rabbinic job interview questions is, “Tell us about something you don’t do well,” or, “What do you find to be your greatest challenge.” To which rabbinical candidates traditionally reply with pablum like, “I care too much.” “I’m too sincere.” “I get very caught up in my work.”

Well, my answer should probably be, “I can’t vacation well.” In fact, I suspect many rabbis have the same problem.

Vacationing is important for anyone whose career demands 24-hour days and whose regular interactions involve matters of physical or emotional life and death. Surgeons, therapists, rabbis, we really do need to get away; if we don’t, we overload and burn out.

I can always tell when burnout is coming: I start to feel nervous all the time, like there’s something I haven’t taken care of.
I start to prepare for classes that I won’t give for two weeks.
I’m in the middle of Shabbos morning and suddenly five different to-do items pop into my mind, items I know I’ll remember afterward and yet I keep mentally repeating them lest I forget them before Shabbos ends and I can write them down.
I see people and immediately ask myself whether I haven’t congratulated them for an accomplishment or consoled them for a loss.

So I know that vacationing is important. I tell other people to take vacations. I tell myself to take vacations. But I’m just bad at it.

One day in, and I’m nervous about how things went in shul that morning.
36 hours in, and I’m thinking about the people in the hospital.
Two days and I’m on the phone to aveilim (mourners).
Our shul secretary laughs at me when I call in; she knows.

One reason I’m so bad at it is that I worry about people. These are my people, and I want to make sure everything is all right for them.
Another reason is that I worry about all the work building up for my return.
Another reason is that I put on my rabbi outfit for Shacharis in the morning and then need to put it on again for Minchah, and changing in between is too much of a pain, so I end up in a tie all day.
And a fourth reason is that being a rabbi has become so much of what I do, and so much of a justification for my existence, that I have a hard time seeing myself - justifying myself - as anything but a rabbi.

Which is not healthy. And which is why I haven’t taken vacation time since last December (unless you count two days in New Jersey).

And then I wonder why I may have prehypertension.

So we’re going to my in-laws for a few days.
I'm packing my mental list of people with whom I want to check in from the road.
I'm packing a few sefarim to prepare a major shiur for mid-January.
I’ll still post my daily Torah Thought and Jewish Law emails, because Torah cannot take a vacation.
I’ll probably put up a couple of blog posts, too, since I find blogging more restful than not, actually.

And I’ll enjoy having hours at a time to spend with the Rebbetzin and our Rebbekids. And, Gd-willing, I'll return prepared to tackle the world again.

A Modest Proposal for an EcoRabbinate

[Haveil Havalim is here!]

I recall that last year an environmentalist group destroyed a lot of paper and expended a great deal of computing power promoting the idea of lighting one fewer candle on Chanukah, or some similar idea.

Regrettably, not only is Chanukah tough on the environment, but the demands of the modern American rabbinate are hard on the environment as well. I have been thinking this through carefully, and I have come to realize that if rabbis were able to relax some of the elements of our jobs, we could do a lot to preserve our environment.

Here are some examples of ways in which rabbis could reduce their carbon footprint and global fingerprint, with only minor losses to their local shulprint:

1. Rabbis are called upon to deliver many classes in the evenings, after people return home from work. This requires a great deal of electrical power. Better for rabbis to stay home at night. Also, rabbis should schedule their weekday classes at times when fewer people can attend, to reduce the amount of driving which will take place as people come to the shiur.

2. Rabbis are expected to attend hospital bedsides and visit shivah homes, as well as participate in happy occasions. Much travel is involved in officiating at everything from a Vachnacht to a Hakamat Matzeivah (unveiling). Perhaps rabbis could just email out guides to special prayers for, and officiating at, religious events, and people could then run their events themselves.

3. Rabbis edit and refine their speeches in order to fit a compressed time frame – but think of the wind power we could generate if we were permitted to speak for thirty or forty minutes! (Of course, this benefit might be offset by the global warming caused by all of that hot air…)

4. Rabbis must be available every moment of every day, which requires great use of cell phones, Blackberrys, Treos, etc. This inevitably translates into a lot of charging time. Rabbis should make themselves available less, and thereby save electricity.

5. Since the days of the Talmud, rabbis have been expected to maintain a clean and orderly appearance, but today some congregants take that requirement to an extreme, catching every small spot and wrinkle. The result is great overuse of dry cleaning chemicals as well as a wasting of water. I would like to see this standard relaxed.

6. And, perhaps most important, rabbis need to recycle more. I propose that rabbis should be permitted - nay, encouraged! - to recycle speeches and divrei torah after allowing them a two-year composting period.

I recognize that not all congregations and congregants value eco-rabbinics as I do, but I trust that, in the interest of our planet, we will be able to find common ground and save the planet, and our synagogues, for generations to come.

The Nervous Rabbi (a.k.a. “I hate public speaking”)

I’ve been speaking publicly for twenty years or more.

I started with divrei torah at my shul’s auxiliary minyan and shiurim when the shul of my childhood was without a rabbi. Since then I’ve been an NCSY advisor, a baal keriah/teacher in a Shabbos shul, a rabbinic intern who was given plenty of chances to speak, and, of course, a pulpit rabbi now in his twelfth year. I teach four to seven formal public classes per week, in addition to Daf Yomi, to groups of all kinds. I should be pretty comfortable with this speaking thing by now.

And yet, I get nervous before I speak. I think there are three reasons, all of which are resolvable:

1) A lot has to do with familiarity of setting. Example: I am, unfortunately, pretty comfortable with funerals, thanks to my familiarity with them.

2) Some of it has to do with confidence in what I have to say; if I feel good about what I’ve prepared for a Shabbos morning speech, I tend to be less nervous.

But then there are occasions when familiarity and confidence in my material are irrelevant. Divrei torah, committee reports, awards and installations… I officiated at a wedding yesterday and found myself incredibly nervous, even though I was among wonderful friends and ecstatic about having the chance to be mesader kiddushin. So why was I nervous?

3) I think I get nervous when I’m distracted, when I’m not focussing on what I am saying, when I’m not absorbed in the thought.

On any given Shabbos morning, there are many subplots afoot in shul – visiting guests and relatives, political issues, taking care of my kids as they daven, people going through life changes – and those subplots tend to percolate in my mind as I am getting up to speak.

The same is true on any occasion, from the simple to the sublime. At a meeting I might also be thinking about a class I’m developing; at a bar mitzvah, a thought about something that happened at minyan that morning might intrude into my mind. I just have a lot of thoughts vying for attention.

It’s like living in shmoneh esreih, all the time.

Many people are like this, I think, and particularly those who have grown up multi-tasking every moment of their lives.

The result is that I am less “in the moment,” less focussed, less able to make an absorbing connection with my material. That may also be why I don’t get nervous when teaching a class – because I tend to prepare material that requires real thought, and I am forced to think carefully in order to explain it to the group.

The upshot: I can solve my nervousness, if this is really the issue:
1) If it’s unfamiliarity – Review what needs to be done, mentally, until I am comfortable;
2) If it’s lack of confidence in my material – Work on it until it’s good;
3) And if it’s distraction – Take a minute to clear everything from my mind, before speaking.

Simple, but it sounds like a plan.

Is "Wish me luck, I'll need it" a winning Israeli political slogan?

Ehud Barak wants to know: Do you feel lucky?

This from the Jerusalem Post's website this evening:

Not long after launching an advertising blitz portraying Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak as neither trendy nor nice, but as a leader, the party unveiled the second phase of its election campaign on Thursday evening.
The new effort features Labor's Knesset candidates, divided into clusters of four with Barak at the center of each, next to the popular Mediterranean phrase "Hamsa hamsa" (a local variant of "knock on wood").
"We have chosen to send the obvious message: We have the best team," Labor campaign manager Mordi Amar said Thursday.
...
"'Hamsa hamsa' is commonly said about something that is good and works, when the subtext is 'don't jinx it,'" added Amar.

Let's not talk around it - a hamsa is a good luck charm.

I don't know. I'm trying to picture an ad campaign with Barack Obama holding a lucky rabbit's foot... or Joe Biden with a four leaf clover... or John McCain in a Vegas casino... or Sarah Palin with her fingers crossed... and it's just not doing it for me.

I don't mean that this ad campaign doesn't speak to me at all; it does, but this is what it's saying:

"Vote for Barak - you might just get lucky."

"A vote for Labor, and a hot pair of dice, will help you win big at the tables."

"I won't change my lucky socks until Election Day."

"It's better to be lucky than good, right?"

"Ein mazal l'Yisrael!"

Maybe this is just the logical message for people who see Ehud Barak "as a leader."

Or maybe Labor really is flat out of ideas.

The story behind the picture: Community vs. Family

If you would glance at my bio photograph, you would see a young, dynamic rabbi (that would be me) holding a baby (our second child).

If you would look at the date on the scanned picture, you would see that it was June 14, 2001 – two days after that baby was born, and eight days after we moved to our new home, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

But what you would likely not realize - unless you were ridiculously expert in the history of the Allentown Jewish Community - is that June 12, 2001, the evening that baby was born, was also the evening of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley’s gala closing meeting/party of 2001, and that as my wife was in labor, my cell phone (as well as our home phone) was ringing with calls asking why I wasn’t at that meeting.

There were several reasons why people wanted to make sure I knew about the Federation's meeting, and would attend:
1) A Federation’s closing meeting is its chance to honor people who have worked hard for the community all year, and so many of the community’s hard workers attend. Big chance to meet the people with whom I would be working.
2) My predecessor did a great job of integrating our shul and the Orthodox community into the Federation community, and everyone would be looking to see whether I would continue that effort.
3) The Federation folks had been told that I had just moved in, and expected to be able to publicly welcome me at the program. It would not do for me to pull a Joe the Plumber and miss my shout-out.

Rabbis are, of course, permitted to miss community events for the sake of family; most people understand that some things (even things less serious than the birth of a child) must come first. Many people even specifically encourage it, saying, “Rabbi, you also need to look after yourself.”

But missing those events, even justifiably, generally comes with a price - especially if they are social events - because:
(1) It’s good to be able to spend time with people outside of formal work time,
(2) The connecting you don’t do at the community event still must be done some other time, and
(3) Even most of the people who understand that you had to miss their event will still feel bad about it.

But, of course, I was busy that night, and so I missed the big closing meeting. It would not be the last time I would miss a community event for the sake of family, but it would definitely be among the most memorable.