Parashat Ki Tisa 5784
by HaRav Nachman Kahana
Part One: Favoritism
A short lesson in Hebrew (Ivrit):
What is the Hebrew word for “bias” and “favoritism” and “privilege”?
Answer: אפליה, pronounced aflaya.
Our parasha records the pivotal moment regarding the Creator’s interaction with humanity before our parasha and after, and its implications for all future generations of Jews and gentiles.
Four Shabbatot ago, in parashat Yitro, HaShem presented the two tablets of the Ten Commandments to Moshe to be given to the Jewish nation. Moshe was a bit late in coming down from Mount Sinai, causing the rabble to feel justified in making a golden calf and proposing that it be the new deity of Yisrael. When Moshe descended the mountain and saw what the people had done, he shattered the tablets and ordered the rebels to be put to death.
HaShem revealed to Moshe that He could no longer tolerate the disloyal Jewish people and His intention to obliterate them. In their place He would establish a new generation of Jews from the offspring of Moshe. Moshe pleaded that he felt that his destiny was intertwined with this Jewish people, so if they die, he requested that his name be erased from the Torah. Here began an incredible dialogue between the ultimate Creator and the greatest mortal ever born.
Moshe brought about a reconciliation between HaShem and the Jewish nation no matter the severity of the sin. Moshe realized that if he and the nation had found favor with HaShem, enough to forgive this intolerable sin, then this was the opportune moment to submit another giant request (Shemot 33,16-17):
ובמה יודע אפוא כי מצאתי חן בעיניך אני ועמך הלוא בלכתך עמנו ונפלינו אני ועמך מכל העם אשר על פני האדמה
ויאמר ה’ אל משה גם את הדבר הזה אשר דברת אעשה כי מצאת חן בעיני ואדעך בשם
How will it be known that You are pleased with me and with your people unless You go with us (to Eretz Yisrael?) and show favoritism [bias] towards your Nation!
And HaShem said to Moshe: I will do the very thing you have asked [be forever biased towards the Jewish nation], because I am pleased with you, and I know you by name.
Moshe’s request was that the Shechina be present only within the Jewish people and not in any other nation or religion. HaShem agreed to Moshe’s request that He relate to humanity according to APARTHEID, where the Jews would be treated forever in a privileged manner.
Let’s see how it played out in history:
What is the oldest monotheistic religion still practiced to this day?
Judaism.
How long did the Tabernacles (Mishkanot) and Holy Temples stand in Jerusalem?
They all stood for a total of over 1200 years: The Tabernacles for approximately 400 years
King Shlomo’s Holy Temple for 410 years
The second HolyTemple (including the Temple of Hordus) for 420 years
Did we survive two millennia in the galut under the cruelty of Christianity and Islam?
Indeed yes.
Did we return to our ancestral homeland in Eretz Yisrael?
Yes.
Were we miraculously victorious in all the wars we fought here?
Yes.
Was Jerusalem restored to Jewish sovereignty on the second day of the Six Day War after 2000 years of praying?
Yes.
Is there another example of a people uprooted from their land and who returned to it after 2000 years?
No.
Is there any other ancient world empire in existence today?
No.
Is the Hebrew language that our F-35 pilots communicate with while flying identical to the Hebrew spoken by King David 3000 years ago?
Yes.
Are the Jews in Eretz Yisrael today drawing closer to traditional Judaism?
Yes.
Where are the Nazis and the Communists who were so committed to destroying our nation?
In the ash heap of history.
Is the innate spiritual and intellectual Jewish genius still functioning?
Yes.
Is this not DIVINE APARTHEID?
HaShem, Creator of all things – including logic and reason, compassion, and punishment – need not justify His actions. The dissolution of the idea – beginning with the Tower of Bavel – that all people are equal was negated the moment HaShem accepted Moshe’s request that He show favoritism to us forever, just as a parent to a child.
This is the central platform upon which Torah Judaism stands – a nation commanded and committed to be close to the Creator through the 613 commandments, as apart from all gentiles who were created to live their lives according to the 7 Noachide commandments.
Tehillim 147,19-20:
מַגִּיד דְּבָרָיו (כתיב דְּבָרָו) לְיַֽעֲקֹב חֻקָּיו וּמִשְׁפָּטָיו לְיִשְׂרָאֵֽל
לֹא עָשָׂה כֵן ׀ לְכָל־גּוֹי וּמִשְׁפָּטִים בַּל־יְדָעוּם הַֽלְלוּיָֽהּ
He tells His words to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel.
He did not do so to any nation, and they did not know the judgments. Hallelukah!
Part Two: Tikun Olam
A major principle in Kabala is that the world we live in now, following the distortion and corruption caused by Adam and Chava by their failed behavior in Gan Eden, is called Tikun Olam. Its meaning is to repair, amend and correct the defects, deficiencies, and deviations that the first human beings brought upon the billions of their future offspring.
In practical terms, Tikun Olam is achieved by making right the evils that exist in society, by restoring mankind to the holy principles of right and wrong, and by clinging to the ways of HaShem.
I am a fervent student of Jewish history. I began with the Tanach and then general history, which I studied at Brooklyn College night school in the years when it had a very high national scholastic rating because of the large number of its yeshiva students. I was introduced to the evil realities created by humanity, whose ways negated and denied the ideals of Tikun Olam.
For some strange reason, I was affected by the inhumanity shown to the indigenous Indians of the continent by the church-going Europeans who murdered millions of them in order to take their lands (perhaps I was influenced by the westerns that I watched on television).
By every standard, the indigenous Indian population to this day is inferior to the national norm in every standard such as health, education, life expectancy, and cultural freedom.
If you are interested in more details, search Google to get an idea of what the founding fathers of the US did to advance “Manifest Destiny” (the destiny of the white civilized Christian Europeans to extend their land grabs from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, at the expense of millions of dead “redskins”).
At this point, some of you impatient readers may be asking yourselves why the issue regarding the American Indians is being discussed by a rabbi in Eretz Yisrael.
Answer: The United States and a number of Arab countries are finalizing a perilous and perfidious “peace plan” to be shoved down the throats of Israel. The unilateral plan (in total disregard to what Israel says) is to establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and its boundaries between the river and the sea.
We all know that, without HaShem’s intervention, a parallel state of millions of Hamas Arabs adjoining Petach Tikva, Yerushalayim and Tel Aviv will be our demise in less than a decade. There will be only one state between the river and the sea whose motto is “itbach al yehud” (death to the Jews).
Let’s get back to the Apache, Sioux, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Arapaho, and Navajos.
In the name of Tikun Olam, the world must right the wrongs that have been done to the millions of Indians (who today number 326 reservations and 573 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and villages in over 25 states) whose standard of living is deplorable. Morality dictates that Israel as the oldest moral religion, together with a number of Arab countries, finalize a plan to establish the “Indigenous Indian Nation” comprising 25 states in today’s United States along with membership in the UN.
That’s “fair play” as taught in the U.S. – “Redskins” get 25 states and ‘White Man” 25 states, both with their capitals in Washington DC (divide and conquer ). ”
The chances of a national state of Indians in the heartland of America are more probable than a “Palestinian” state bordering on Israel. Never!
Shabbat Shalom through victory,
Nachman Kahana
Copyright © 5784/2024 Nachman Kahana
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