Igrot Hare’aya – Letters of Rav Kook: Raffle of Property in Eretz Yisrael for Tzedaka

#220

Date and Place: 25 Menachem Av 5669 (1909), Rechovot

Recipient: An open letter, apparently sent broadly, in Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora, as part of a fundraising project.

Body: It is already known to the masses how great and holy the sacred yeshiva and the lower-school yeshiva in Meah Shearim is. It is one of the most important parts of Jerusalem, the Holy City, may it be rebuilt and established. It is unnecessary to bring proof about things that are well known.

However, now the holy institution is in a horrible situation of financial distress. The administrators, who are great rabbis, including the brilliant rabbi who is famous for his Torah and his fear of Heaven, Rabbi Shaul Chaim, the Rabbi of Dobrovna, decided that it is correct to raffle off the estate they own in the Moshava of Chadera, which is within Eretz Yisrael, may it be rebuilt and established. The area of the land in question is 220 dunams (approximately, 55 acres). Alas, such an act should find grace and honor in the eyes of our dear brothers, who love our Desired Land, whether they are far (i.e. live in the Diaspora) or near (i.e., live in Eretz Yisrael). There is little more that needs to be said.

[This is a special opportunity for more than one reason.] For one, by joining in the support of a holy institution, by buying raffles, people are strengthening those who are building [the Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael and specifically] this wonderful institution of Torah and distinction, which is located on the heights of the Holy Mountain, in Jerusalem, the Holy City, may it be rebuilt and established.

Additionally, those who win the raffle, how good is their part, and how pleasant is their lot, to merit receiving a piece of land and an estate in the Holy Land. This is especially significant at this time, which is a time of building, thank G-d. It is a time at which the Spirit of Hashem is on His nation to enable them to return to their estate in an ever-increasing manner.

It is a special opportunity, in that even those raffles that will not be “winners” will still enable their holders to receive four amot of land in Eretz Yisrael. This is both a piece of land in the estate of Hashem, and also, an opportunity to take part in fulfilling the Land-based commandments. This makes [those who buy raffles fortunate] and does good for them.

I sign with blessings from the holy mountains to everyone who lends a hand in support of the pillars of the holy Torah and the pillars of the settlement of Eretz Yisrael, which are both things that are loved for eternity.

“Bar Yochai – Happy is the Nation that Learns from You”

by HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was privileged to have the day of his passing, which fell on Lag BaOmer, become a major celebration on which the Jewish People light bonfires in his honor. Those bonfires are like a memorial candle commemorating the lofty soul that merited to be amongst the elite - to see the countenance of the divine presence, to make personal, direct contact with G-d. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai merited this stature by virtue of self-sacrifice. He was ready to exempt the whole world from divine punishment through his suffering instead of theirs for their sins, like loving parents who are ready to suffer so that their children don’t have to suffer (see Succah 45b). Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai particularly felt the pain of the Jewish People and of Eretz Yisrael. He couldn’t bear to have a foreign nation, the Romans, ruling over the People and Land of Israel, and he spoke to the Roman’s detriment. As a result, the Romans pursued him and wished to kill him, and he was forced to hide in a cave for twelve years with his son.

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s self-sacrifice for the People and Land of Israel stemmed from his clear faith in and recognition of Israel’s essence and purpose, as well as of the meaning of Jewish rule over Eretz Yisrael for the Jewish People and for all mankind. Not only did Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai understand and recognize the connection between the People and Land of Israel, but so did all the mystics who followed in his path, such as Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, Ramban, the Arizal, Ramchal, the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov and of the Vilna Gaon, and others, who exhibited self-sacrifice for Eretz Yisrael, going there despite the great dangers and hardships involved.

In our times, as we joyously sing, “Bar Yochai, how fortunate you are! Anointed with the oil of joy by your colleagues,” we have to recall that he merited what he did through his self-sacrifice for the People, Land and Torah of Israel. Not only Bar Yochai merited in this way, but all who have followed in his path down through the generations, especially in our own generation, the generation of rebirth and of the ingathering of the exiles, whether they are aware of it or not. The merit from self-sacrifice for the sake of the Jewish People, Torah, and Land, shall defend them, and through it they in turn bring merit to the entire generation and to all generations. The day is not far off when through us will be fulfilled, “Bar Yochai! Fortunate are your forbears! Fortunate is the nation that learns from you, fortunate are those who dwell on your secret, enveloped in the breastplate of your Urim VeTumim!”

Besorot Tovot and Shabbat Shalom,
Looking forward to complete salvation,
With the Love of Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael.

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SEASON 2024 EPISODE 21: Yishai is in Tennessee at a pro-Israel summit of gentiles who know that Judea and Samaria must stay Jewish - will America hear their voice? Then, Malkah Fleisher goes on ILTV to defend fighting in Gaza until total victory and Jewish resettlement. Finally, Ben Bresky on the birth of Israeli civilian aviation. Plus: Table Torah on the Biblical holiday of Pesach Sheini.

Why was the shofar blown throughout the land?

by Rav Binny Freedman

We’ll call him Gabi (not his real name); he was a most unlikely recruit, and none of us had any idea how and why he had gotten into our unit. He was overweight, to put it mildly, and was always the last to finish every run and every physical task, and even most of the nonphysical tasks. He was the last to get his gun cleaned and ready for inspection, the last to get out to the parade ground in the morning and the last one on every run. Maybe he was way out of shape, but looking back, I think it was also his motivation; not sure he had a clue why he was there and spent most of his time wishing he wasn’t.

But on our masa’ot (forced marches) it became pretty obvious he was in the wrong place, and in a lot of trouble. I could hear his heavy breathing, groaning and agonizing as he struggled to keep up somewhere behind me, until finally I could not bear it anymore. We were heading up a difficult hill so I told him he could grab on to the straps of my back pouches and I’d try & help pull him.

Very quickly I realized I was in a lot of trouble. It’s not like I had such an easy time myself, and now I was pulling someone else. And then something incredible happened: one of the guys pushed in between us, grabbed ‘Gabi’ and started pulling him in my stead, and a few minutes later someone else pushed in and repeated the same exercise; all night long through this grueling trek, in what could not have been planned, the entire unit took it upon themselves to give new meaning to the IDF tradition, that ‘no man gets left behind’.

Simply put, once a few of us made looking out for our buddy a priority, it became everyone’s priority. And the most fascinating thing about it was, despite the fact that physically it was obviously more difficult, psychologically it motivated us to a whole different level. In fact, though it might have appeared we were pulling Gabi, in a way, he was also pulling us; and we were really all pulling each other, which of course is what being part of a unit is all about.

This week’s portion, Behar, begins with a fascinating mitzvah:

Every seven years in the land of Israel, we are meant to allow the land to lie fallow. We don’t farm, and people are meant to have time off from tilling the soil, to nurture their souls.

And after every seventh Sabbatical year, the fiftieth year is a Yovel year, when once again we allow the land to lie fallow. And at the end of this fiftieth Jubilee year, all lands return to their tribal owners by heritage, and all indentured servants go free. And we are reminded that nothing is really ours, and we do not own the land, it is a gift we are given, with which we are meant to serve a higher purpose.

Interestingly, the Torah tells us (Vayikra 25:9) that this moment when the lands are restored to their original owners and servants go free, occurs at the end of Yom Kippur, when the shofar is sounded throughout the land. Indeed, even today, we blow the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur recalling this mitzvah.

Why was the shofar blown throughout the land?

The Sefer Hachinuch makes a fascinating point. Think about it: this must have been an extremely difficult thing to do.

After the seventh Shemitah (i.e. 49th) year when the land lay fallow, followed by the Jubilee year where again, one did not work the land, all the slaves went free.

And for many people who had purchased land which was worked by indentured servants similarly acquired, the end of Yom Kippur must have been a difficult new reality. Free labor, all gone; the land one had depended on, now restored to its original owners.

Suggests the Chinuch: when the owners heard the blast of the shofar they knew they were not alone; everyone had to free their indentured servants.

But why did that help? Perhaps because we are tremendously influenced by what everyone else is doing.

Think about it: why did we all throw away our wide, fat ties? Fat ties actually make more sense; you are less likely to stain your shirt; but no one is wearing wide ties and we want to be in style….

We are very much influenced by the people around us (think about the difference between watching a ball game on TV and experiencing it at the stadium…) and knowing that we are not alone is no small thing.

As an example, why would anyone ever start smoking?

According to a 2008 study by the American Heart Association, despite the widespread efforts to curb tobacco use, and the fact that it is impossible for a person today not to be aware of the dangers of smoking, nearly fifty million Americans are smokers. Hundreds of thousands of people will start smoking this year, the largest percentage of whom by far are teenagers. And the single most significant reason they will start smoking is peer pressure. Kids will start smoking because they want to belong. Often, the changes for teens in family roles and social status along with physical changes can lead to much insecurity; simply put, they want to belong, and if smoking a cigarette is the price for being included, then so be it.

And that is exactly what a person would be experiencing as all of a sudden, on the day after Yom Kippur he awakens to a whole new reality where he no longer owns his land, and he has no servants to help him till his fields.

What will people think of him? Will he or she still command the same status and respect?

Isn’t it interesting that in the portion of Vayakhel, Moshe gathers the people together, the entire congregation of Israel, to build a Mishkan, on the day after Yom Kippur. (See Rashi Shemot 35:1) Perhaps this is the day the Jewish people are meant to come together; maybe the piercing sound of the Shofar that stills dissent and bonds us in a single moment of shared experience is the beginning of that new year.

Indeed, the Rambam in his Hilchot Deot (6:1) points out that it is the way of man to be drawn after the behaviors and opinions of his friends and compatriots. As such it behooves us to choose our environment well. And a person who finds him or herself in a negative environment must do everything he or she can to move away from such places, even to the point of leaving a country if evil presides there. (Imagine how different the world might have been if all the Jews of Germany had left in 1933 as soon as Hitler came to power….)

Indeed, this may well be what having a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel all is about: here we are meant to create an environment where in everything we do, we recall that blast of the Shofar at the end of Yom Kippur, when we are reminded that we don’t really own the land or anything else, it is simply given to us on loan in order to create a better world, where no human being is ever left behind….

Shabbat Shalom from Yerushalayim.

Nearly 70% of Gaza Aid from US-Built Pier Stolen

by Joshua Marks


Close to three-fourths of the humanitarian aid transported from a new floating pier built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast was stolen on Saturday en route to a U.N. warehouse. Pictured: Palestinian men loot a truck carrying international humanitarian aid from the US-built floating pier near Nuseirat in the Gaza Strip on May 18, 2024. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Close to three-fourths of the humanitarian aid transported from a new $320 million floating pier built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast was stolen on Saturday en route to a U.N. warehouse, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Eleven trucks "were cleaned out by Palestinians" on the journey to the World Food Programme warehouse in Deir El Balah in the central Strip, with only five truckloads making it to the destination.

"They've not seen trucks for a while," a U.N. official told Reuters. "They just basically mounted on the trucks and helped themselves to some of the food parcels."

According to the United Nations, no aid was delivered to the warehouse from the U.S. military's pier on Sunday and Monday.

The United Nations said that 10 truckloads of food aid from the pier arrived at the warehouse on Friday, its first day of operation. It was transported by U.N. contractors.

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South Africa, Putin's Marxist Cadres and the International Court of Justice at the Hague

by Nils A. Haug

• [I]n 2023, the ANC, on behalf of the South African government, brought charges of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This case seems to be another fatuous endeavour by the ANC for prominence....
• [T]he ANC has effectively "turned its back on Western values, and expressed its support for countries and organisations that subscribe to terror as a measure and method of governance."
• Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa, citizen.co.za, November 15, 2023
• [E]verything Western, regarded as colonialist or imperialist, must be destroyed and recreated according to atheist, socialist, dogma... in pursuit of a revolutionary version of pseudo-egalitarian social justice.
• The historic ties of these African countries to the totalitarian countries of Russia, Cuba, and China and to revolutionary movements such as Hamas are as strong as ever.
• Through BRICS and other forums aligned with anti-Western actors, these African countries oppose the West with impunity and reject any pretence of joining the West's sphere of nations with their liberal democratic traditions.
• Anglo-American nations blissfully ignore Africa's strong connection to despotic regimes and persist in their simplistic approach towards these countries by showering them with financial incentives and arranging unproductive conferences.... African countries gladly accept the offered funds while remaining aligned to totalitarian regimes. Financial enticements by the West for the purposes of gaining favour are made in vain: these leaders remain, at their core, Marxist revolutionaries imposing extreme socialist policies on their populace, unfortunately leading to the demise of hitherto prosperous and productive economies.
• Until a positive regime change occurs, no improvement in the lives of the average citizen can be expected. The people get poorer by the day.... The dim prospects of the poor, which led to the protest and resulted in millions of dollars in damage to the economy, have not improved.
• Realistic hope turns to despair for southern Africa's political and economic future, particularly South Africa, which is fast approaching a failed state. A 2023 Harvard Kennedy Business School study describes the cause as "collapsing state capacity and spatial exclusion" -- which translates as state inefficiency and the exclusion of whites from certain aspects of the economy. The same can be said of Zimbabwe (very much a failed state), Namibia, and others.
• This is the complex world of southern African politics, whose leaders present lip service to the Western ideals of democracy while accepting generous global hand-outs – usually offered, unfortunately, with no demands for accountability.

In 2023, the African National Congress (ANC), on behalf of the South African government, brought charges of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice. This case seems to be another fatuous endeavour by the ANC for prominence. Pictured: Basem Naim (L), a Hamas leader who is a former Gaza health minister and Khaled Al-Qaddumi, Hamas' representative in Iran, speak during a press conference in Cape Town, South Africa on November 29. (Photo by Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images)

In South Africa, the most important benefactor of the African National Congress party (ANC) since independence in 1994, providing military support for years, was the former Soviet Union. Despite exhibiting a veneer of democracy, the ANC and their associates, remain fervently Communist-Socialist, adopt Marxist-Leninist socialist dogma as their political worldview and hold Russian President Vladimir Putin in high regard.

In the three decades since the neo-Marxist ANC commenced its rule, however, South Africa, as a country rich in natural resources and with a hitherto first class private business sector, has been experiencing a depressing nearly 40% unofficial unemployment rate, with daily electric power "load-shedding" nationally, a compromised water supply, and endemic corruption at every level of government -- generally to the benefit of a politically connected elite.

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The Writing on the Wall

BS”D
Parashat Behar 5784
by HaRav Nachman Kahana

Part One
The prophet Yeshayahu (54,17):

כל כלי יוצר עליך לא יצלח וכל לשון תקום אתך למשפט תרשיעי זאת נחלת עבדי ה’ וצדקתם מאתי נאם ה‘

No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.

This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from Me, declares the Lord.

Kohelet 3,16:

עוד ראיתי תחת השמש מקום המשפט שמה הרשע ומקום הצדק שמה הרשע

And I saw something else under the sun:

In the place of judgment (courts) wickedness was there (corrupt judges)

in the place of justice, wickedness was there (personal interest).

The Writing on the Wall, as recorded in the book of Daniel, chapter five.

Belshazzar, last of the Babylonian empire kings, was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, destroyer of the first Temple who exiled the aristocracy of Yerushalayim and its Torah scholars and took back with him to Babylon many of the Temple’s exquisite vessels.

Belshazzar hosted a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles, and ordered the use of the gold and silver goblets that were taken from the Temple. Suddenly the form of a human hand appeared out of nowhere and wrote on the wall in Hebrew letters:

“mene, mene, tekel, upharsim”.

None of those present could understand their meaning, until Daniel, the Jewish exile, was summoned to aid in deciphering the message.

Daniel came and immediately said to the king:

Belshazzar, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from His temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in His hand your life and all your ways. Therefore, He sent the hand that wrote the inscription. This is what these words mean:

Mene Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.

Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

Upharsim: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

That very night, Belshazzar was murdered and Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede took over to reign the former kingdom of Babylon.

In our time… Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, this week advised the court to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant of Israel and, on the side of Hamas, warrants for the arch murderers Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh.

Karim Khan made it clear that not only is he evil but also stupid by equating the leaders of the Jewish State with the Nazis of Hamas, a brutal terrorist organization that perpetrated the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Some European countries have already declared that if the ICC accepts the prosecutor’s recommendation, they will implement the arrest warrants; and other nations are joining suit.

This evil development linked together with the announcements of Ireland, Spain and Norway that they will recognize a Palestinian state, with more European nations expected to follow, corroborates what is common knowledge – that Christian Europe is suffering from a terminal illness called Judenhass.

Under the circumstances, if the learned judges of the ICC would look to the ceiling they would see handwriting in Russian Cyrillic, the words: “mene, mene, tekel, upharsim” which mean:

HaShem has numbered the days of your reign (Europe) and brought them to an end.

You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

Your nations will be divided.

And why in Cyrillic? Because the players are already in position, with Russia’s announcement this week that they are training their troops in tactical atomic warfare or any one of HaShem’s unlimited methods of dealing with those who would harm His nation, Am Yisrael.

Part Two
What’s with the US in their grotesque maneuvers to undermine the security of Israel while appearing to be our staunchest ally?

It has been my experience in many areas that that which is open, obvious, logical and up front is never the real story. The true intentions of devious men and countries are to be found where the light of day never shines.

I submit:

There is a four-way scramble between the region’s Moslem nations for the leadership of the Middle East.Arab Egypt with its 110 million subjects and the largest army in the area.
Non-Arab Turkey with one foot in Asia and the other in Europe.
Shi’ite Iran as apart from the others which are Sunni Moslems.
Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam.

Each has a claim, but none has the absolute ability to wear the crown.

But, lo and behold, the tiny country of Jewish Israel with our 7 million Jews is the winner take all! We are the area’s star. The most advanced nation according to any criteria, satisfaction of its citizens, high tech, freedom, democratic institutions, medicine, start-ups, nuclear advancement, Nobel prize winners; just about everything, as we leave all the rest behind in the dust.

I would not be surprised if there is covert collaboration between nations to diminish the role of Israel among the family of nations. This could help explain why the US is obviously trying to prevent our total victory in Gaza.

Just a Thought!

Shabbat Shalom,
Nachman Kahana
Copyright © 5784/2024 Nachman Kahana

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Snatching Hamas from the jaws of defeat undermines US interest

by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

*Secretary of State Antony Blinken is a true believer in the diplomatic option toward Iran’s Ayatollahs. He rules out regime-change and military options, irrespective of the Ayatollahs’ 45-year-old track record of anti-US terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and proliferation of advanced military systems.

*Currently, Blinken is pressuring Israel to negotiate another ceasefire with Hamas, disregarding the litany of previous ceasefires, which bolstered Hamas’ terror capabilities. He leans on Israel to shift from the military option to the diplomatic option, snatching Hamas from the jaws of obliteration. Such a shift would be perceived by all Middle East entities as a dramatic victory for Hamas and a major defeat for Israel, fueling more terrorism and war against Israel and all pro-US Arab countries, which already have the machetes of Islamic terrorism at their throats. It will also reduce the Arab/Moslem interest to conclude additional peace treaties with Israel, and inspire Islamic terrorism on US soil, as stated by FBI Director, Chris Wray.

According to AP: “In a pair of TV interviews, Secretary Blinken underscored that the United States believes Israeli forces should ‘get out of Gaza…,’ reiterating the longstanding U.S. opposition to the growing Israeli offensive in Rafah.…” According to PBS: “US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli leaders in his push for a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas…. ‘We are determined to get a ceasefire…. There is a proposal on the table, and as we have said: no delays, no excuses, the time is now….’ The proposal would put a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza up for discussion….”

*Secretary of State, Antony Blinken is genuinely determined to advance the cause of peace and stability in the Middle East, but he is driven by a speculative future scenario, which is a derivative of an alternate reality, detached from Middle East reality.

*Blinken underestimates the role of the larger context of Hamas’ and Hezbollah’s terrorism, which is critically financed, supplied and trained by Iran’s Ayatollahs, who support and collaborate with anti-US regimes in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, including Latin American drug cartels in Mexico, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil.

*Irrespective of the systematically rogue anti-US track record of the Ayatollahs – since toppling the Shah of Iran in February 1979 - Blinken sticks to the diplomatic/negotiation option, which has been a bonanza for Iran’s anti-US strategy. He refuses to recognize that the Ayatollahs are not partners for peaceful coexistence and good-faith negotiation, but a target for regime-change, which would liberate the oppressed majority of Iran, eliminate the chief threat to the survival of every pro-US Arab regime, eradicate a major hurdle on the way of more Israel-Arab peace accords, and would deprive anti-US global Islamic terrorism of its leading epicenter. A regime change would generate a robust tailwind to regional and global stability and peaceful coexistence.

*Blinken takes lightly the 17-year-long track record of Israel-Hamas confrontations, which documents that ceasefire agreements are leveraged by Hamas to bolster its Moslem Brotherhood directed terror machine.

*Blinken underrates the fact that any policy toward the Israel-Hamas war should be a derivative of the 1,400-year-old intrinsic features of Middle East reality. For instance, the absence of intra-Moslem and intra-Arab peaceful coexistence; the violent intolerance towards “infidels,” “apostates” as well as “believers”; the absence of democracy, human rights and long term compliance with agreements; shifty and unpredictable policies and violence; the tenuous nature of all Arab regimes, which ascend to – and lose – power via the “bullet” (violence), and not via the ballot; the tenuous nature of these regimes’ policies and accords; the centrality of fanatic ideology, which transcends the Western notion of “money talks;” etc.

*In this frustrating volcanic reality of the Middle East – unlike the much more convenient and predictable State Department’s alternate reality - the most critical component of national security is posture of deterrence, rather than negotiation and peace accords, which are as tenuous as the regimes that conduct them.

*While a bolstered posture of deterrence minimizes war and terrorism, an eroded posture of deterrence whets the appetite of rogue entities; thus, intensifying war and terrorism, regionally and globally.

*Israel’s posture of deterrence was demolished by its own October 7 debacle(!), and its military strategy since then has aimed to restore it, in order to rebound and avoid eventual destruction.

*Secretary Blinken underrates the centrality of fanatical visions and ideologies in the Middle East, and therefore assumes that constructive negotiation may take place among all parties. He ignores the fact that constructive negotiation may take place between entities, whose vision does not require the elimination of one another. Thus, peace accords were successfully negotiated between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and South Sudan, and Israel-Saudi cooperation has been exceptionally productive.

*None of these agreements were preconditioned upon the establishment of a Palestinian state! Arabs consider the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and treachery, and therefore shower the Palestinian with embracing talk, while the actual walk ranges from indifferent-to-negative.

*These Arab countries would prefer a Middle East devoid of “an infidel” Jewish sovereignty, but the fulfillment of their national visions is not predicated upon the elimination of Israel. In fact, they consider Israel as an effective national security ally in the face of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Moslem Brotherhood.

*On the other hand, constructive negotiation cannot take place between Israel and Hamas, since the fulfillment of Hamas’ fanatical vision - as stipulated in the 1988 Hamas charter, its hate-education and mosque-incitement and Hamas’ terrorism – is preconditioned upon the elimination of the “infidel” Jewish State. The same applies to the Palestinian Authority, whose annihilationist vision is stated by the 1964 and 1959 charters of the PLO and Fatah terror organizations – 3 and 8 years before the 1967 War - which are embedded in the PA’s hate education, mosque incitement, the idolization of terrorists and systematic terrorism - calling for the elimination of Israel.

*The US State Department is advised to pay more attention to the reality of the Middle East, and abandon its systematically failing alternate reality.

A small parsha with big messages

by Rabbi Pinchas Winston

THIS IS A small parsha with big messages. The central theme is summed up by this verse:

I am God your God Who took you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be God to you. (Vayikra 25:38)

which the Gemora explains as follows:

All those who dwell in Eretz Yisroel are like those who have a God, and all those who dwell outside the land are like those without a God. (Kesuvos 110b)

This is why Shmittah and Yovel only apply in Eretz Yisroel, as well as all the laws of tithing produce. We do all of this to facilitate a relationship with God you just can’t have outside of Eretz Yisroel, especially if there is no reason to be there.

You can certainly learn Torah and do mitzvos in the Diaspora, and get rewarded in the World to Come for them. But the doing of them will not enhance one’s relationship with God the same way they do in Eretz Yisroel. This is why Ya’akov Avinu could not wait to get home after 20 years of being away from it.

What is the basis of the difference between Eretz Yisroel and the rest of the lands? Is it just because God says so, or because it is so?

The physical world takes up space, which is why two physical things cannot be in the same place at the same time without damaging one another. It is even harder to be in two places at one time, and for something to be physically higher, it has to be on a higher physical level.

Not so in the spiritual world. The spiritual world is neither bound by time nor space, therefore something can be on the same physical level, even lower, than other things and yet be much spiritually higher. Obviously when the Gemora says that Eretz Yisroel is the highest land it is not talking physically. It can only be talking spiritually.

Why does that make such a big difference? Because the higher something is on the spiritual ladder, the closer it is to God. This means that it can receive a higher, less filtered level of Divine light, which makes the reality of God far more real. The sense of Shechinah that a person has, goes from being only an idea to a palpable reality and awesome experience.

But more importantly, it means that their keli, the “body” that receives the light is more spiritually refined and therefore more capable of receiving higher levels of Divine light. This in turn further refines the body and spiritually strengthens it, making it even more capable of even higher levels of Divine light. This elevates Torah learning to a higher level, and mitzvah performance to a higher standard. Thus it says:

There is no Torah like the Torah of Eretz Yisroel, and no wisdom like the wisdom of Eretz Yisroel. (Bereishis Rabbah 16:4)

[Even] the air of Eretz Yisroel makes a person wise. (Bava Basra 158b)

This is not talking about physical air you breathe through your physical nose. This is talking about a spiritual breathing your soul does by living in the only land whose borders parallel the only opening to Heaven. This results in a spiritual advantage that the Gemora sums up with:

Three inherit the World-to-Come: One who lives in Eretz Yisroel, etc. (Pesachim 113a)

Living in Eretz Yisroel is the equivalent of performing all the mitzvos of the Torah. (Sifri, Re’eh; Tosefta, Avodah Zarah 5:2)

Here’s the best part. All of this works regardless of who is in political control of the country. It’s the reality of Eretz Yisroel during times of redemption and exile, if a person is here to take advantage of it (Tuv HaAretz). The midrash has only praise of Jews who make aliyah before Moshiach comes, because it shows that they put spiritual priorities over material ones.

People have many “reasons” for why they won’t even entertain the possibility of moving from the Diaspora to Eretz Yisroel. The spies did too in Moshe Rabbeinu’s time, and look how that worked out for them. You can fool people a lot of the time, and yourself, some of the time. But you can’t fool God any of the time, so…

Shabbat shalom.

Courting infamy: The ICC prosecutor's blood libel is part of the pincer movement for Israel's destruction

by Melanie Phillips

This is an expanded version of my column (£) in today’s Times of London.

The decision by the International Criminal Court prosecutor, the British lawyer Karim Khan KC, to request arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its minister of defence, Yoav Gallant, is a wickedly perverse and deeply troubling move.

He has also requested arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Deif, commander-in-chief of Hamas’s military wing and Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political bureau.

He has accused the Hamas leaders of murder, extermination, torture and rape which are crimes against humanity, and of taking Israelis hostage which are war crimes.

Khan presents this as a display of even-handedness. This itself is morally bankrupt. There can be no equivalence between a genocidal attempt at extermination and a country’s defence against it.

The accusations against the Hamas trio are based on factual evidence. Those against the Israelis are wholly without foundation.

Khan accuses them of starving Gaza’s civilians, wilfully killing them, intentionally attacking those queuing for food and obstructing delivery of humanitarian aid.

He says Israel has “intentionally and systematically” deprived Gaza’s civilians of objects indispensable to human survival”through “the imposition of a total siege over Gaza that involved completely closing the three border crossing points… for extended periods”.

But the very opposite is the case. There has been no “total siege”. Since the beginning of the war, according to Israeli statistics, 18,255 trucks have crossed from Israel into Gaza carrying 399,580 tons of food, 59,660 tons of shelter equipment and 23,110 tons of medical supplies.

It is Hamas that has been obstructing the delivery of aid and stealing civilian supplies for its own use and to sell on the black market at inflated prices, from which it is estimated to have made some $500 million — according to an analyst at the Washington Institute and supported by Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency. When Israel has opened fire around the aid trucks it has been against Hamas terrorists trying to steal their cargo.

Even more astoundingly, Khan makes no mention of Egypt which also has a border with Gaza. Yet Egypt has sealed that border and refuses to let any aid supplies through at all.

The claim that Israel’s defence forces have been wilfully killing Gaza’s civilians is also the opposite of the truth. It is, indeed, a blood libel.

The civilian death figures produced by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry and recycled by the UN have been grossly inflated. After experts pointed out they were statistically impossible, the health ministry slashed them — admitting that some had been taken from the media.



Karim Khan flanked by his trial lawyers

Two weeks ago, the UN quietly followed suit and halved its own totals. Since the Israelis estimate they have killed around 14,000 terrorists, they have killed approximately one civilian for every combatant. This is a vastly lower proportion of civilians killed than has ever been achieved by any other country in warfare.

The Israelis have taken more care not to kill civilians than any other country. Yet astoundingly, they are being accused of crimes against humanity.

The people who really have exposed Gaza’s civilians to danger are the Hamas terrorists, who have used them as human shields and cannon fodder by siting missiles and the infrastructure of warfare among apartment blocks, schools and hospitals. These are real war crimes against Gaza’s civilians which Khan doesn’t even mention.

Khan has relied for his evidence upon claims made by partisan “human rights” groups who oppose Israel’s existence and have been defaming it with lies that have inflamed protests and attacks upon Jews across the world.

He says the evidence against Israel has been supplied by “multiple witnesses interviewed by my office, including local and international medical doctors”. But many if not most of Gaza’s doctors have been exposed as Hamas operatives or sympathisers.

Khan has also driven a coach and horses through the fundamental precept of the ICC known as “complementarity”. This holds that court may only exercise jurisdiction where national legal systems fail to do so, and it must give a state itself time to investigate any claims that have been made against it.

Yet Khan has requested his arrest warrants without even asking Israel to investigate his charges. And since the war in Gaza is still under way, that is clearly not yet possible.

Khan himself was not previously known for anti-Israel views. A cautious individual, he is also an Ahmadi Muslim. Ahmadis are themselves victims of persecution and oppression within the Islamic world where other Muslims consider them to be heretics. He is no Hamas groupie.

Moreover, after the October 7 pogrom he came to Israel at the invitation of the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, toured the devastated Gaza periphery communities, met survivors and freed hostages and was clearly deeply moved.

He was also keenly aware of the ICC’s deeply damaged reputation as a court owing more to international power politics than to the rule of law, and which was all but wrecked by his two incompetent and deeply partisan predecessors in the post.

So why did such a man trash what was left of the court’s reputation by turning a court that is a supposed bulwark against tyranny into a weapon to punish a democracy for defending itself against genocide?

The answer is surely that Khan, a former member of a “human rights” barristers’ chambers in London, subscribes to “human rights” culture. And in recent years international “human rights” law — which, when it was developed in the middle of the last century to protect powerless minorities, some presciently warned would turn into a politicised weapon against the Jewish people — has indeed developed into a weapon to demonise, delegitimise and destroy the State of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. “Human rights” culture today is suffused with hatred of Israel and has thus played a major role in poisoning the progressive west against it.

Defensively, Khan says he has consulted a panel of “impartial” lawyers. Yet this panel contains a number of radical “human rights” lawyers who are no friends of Israel.

One of them, Danny Friedman KC, is a barrister at the radical Matrix Chambers. On November 18 last year he wrote:


Israel’s response to the attack on its territory has involved catastrophic mass fatality and untold human suffering of Palestinians — not only as a result of aerial and ground bombardment, but through, among other features, cessation of basic sustenance and amenities, destruction of medical facilities, and forced movement of populations within the blockaded geography of the Gaza strip. These are also grave war crimes… it is difficult to see from a legal point of view how the continuation of military action in Gaza at this time would be concordant with international law.

In a speech he gave to a fundraising dinner for Medical Aid for Palestine, he said a ceasefire was now “a matter of legal imperative”. These were hardly the views of someone who brought an open mind to the ICC’s deliberations.

Another panel member was the veteran barrister Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws KC. Her website says she is president of Medical Aid for Palestinians. Last October, she warned against “collective punishment” by Israel and referred to Gaza “being reduced to rubble”. She said only token amounts of aid were being allowed in and accused Israel of cutting off Gaza’s water supplies.

In a speech on genocide in the House of Lords in March, she said:

The current conflict between Hamas and Israel follows decades of terrible conduct, by both the IDF and Hamas, before, during and after 7 October.

Rub your eyes. In the view of this doyenne of “human rights,” Israeli soldiers who died in great number as they desperately tried to fight off the Hamas stormtroopers even while they were continuing to perpetrate that depraved and barbaric pogrom against Israeli women, children and men, were guilty of “terrible conduct”.

This “impartial” panel is actually a hanging jury from the Salem school of law: verdict first, evidence nowhere.

Khan’s attack against Israel — with the panel of lawyers he assembled serving as his human shield against criticism — represents yet another onslaught of defamation, demonisation and delegitimisation mounted by the apparatus of international law against the Jewish state, a unique and malicious double standard applied to no other country on earth.

Far from restoring the ICC’s reputation, Khan’s move will now bury it in the eyes of all fair-minded and decent people.

It will also hammer a nail into the coffin of human rights law, the legal instrument of the international “humanitarian” establishment of the UN and anti-Israel non-governmental organisations for which this kind of “lawfare” has become a principal weapon aimed at Israel’s destruction.

Doubtless under enormous pressure from both the UN and his former chums in Britain’s radical barrister sets, Khan’s preposterous move is part of the agenda for Israel’s destruction through a pincer movement of genocidal terror, brainwashed street insurrection and “human rights” lawfare.

The beneficiary will be Hamas; the victims will be Israel, the rule of law and civilisation itself.

Rav Kook's Ein Ayah: Movement and Stability

(based on Ein Ayah, Berachot 1:153)

Gemara: One who prays should place his legs together, as the pasuk says: “Their legs were a straight leg” [a pasuk referring to angels that the prophet saw] (Yechezkel 1:7).

Ein Ayah: The legs serve two purposes: walking and standing. In order to walk, the legs are primarily separate from each other; during standing, the main usage of the legs is when they are close together.

In the course of one’s work on shleimut (spiritual completeness) there is “walking” (i.e., movement) and one can acquire attainments in the realm of the intellectual and that of personal attributes. There is also “standing” (i.e., spiritual consistency), by means of which one makes sure that the things that he acquired will remain strongly in his spirit, so that they will not be lost by some change in or challenge to his status. This dichotomy is hinted at by the pasuk: “Who will go up on the mountain of Hashem and who will stand in His holy place?” (Tehillim 24:3). One needs not only to reach the proper level but remain there.

The Torah is special in that it increases shleimut and brings higher levels, and, for this reason, it is called a path. “One who does not increase, will lose what he has” (Avot 1:13). In contrast, prayer etches into a person the levels that were attained so that they become permanent. In that way, a person begins to resemble angels, whose levels of shleimut are strong by virtue of their very existence. In fact, their main calling is to remain in their shleimut and not to increase upon it. Therefore, their legs relate to their power of unification, the straight leg. It also indicates that that their level is a natural one, not one that was chosen through free choice. This is like the natural movement that has no curving or distortion, as the Rambam discusses in Moreh Nevuchim. Included in this matter of stability is a person’s striving during prayer that his high levels should be acquired permanently and engrained.

Proclaim Freedom throughout the Land

by HaRav Mordechai Greenberg
Nasi HaYeshiva, Kerem B'Yavneh

We say in the Hagaddah on Pesach, "Had G-d not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, we and our children and grandchildren would be subjugated to Pharaoh in Egypt." The obvious question is, even if G-d had not taken out our ancestors in that generation, He could have taken out their children or grandchildren, and then we would not be subjugated to Pharaoh?!

The Maharal provides the parable of a person who rescued his friend from a burning house, and afterwards the one who was rescued married and had children. We would not say that the children were saved by the rescuer, since he saved only the father, whereas the birth of the children is incidental and does not relate to the rescue of the father. However, this is not the case regarding the exodus of Am Yisrael from Egypt! While it is possible for any nation to leave servitude, the exodus of Yisrael was not merely the redemption of that generation, which has resulted in us no longer being slaves. Rather, G-d "intended for all generations," and in this way He stamped Am Yisrael with the seal of freedom for all its generations, and from the time of Yetziat Mitzrayim and on there cannot be servitude in Am Yisrael. This type of rescue which extends for all the generations of Yisrael can only be performed by G-d.

Based on this, we should read the sentence above from the Hagaddah with a different emphasis: "Had G-d not taken our ancestors out of Egypt," but we would have left through our own abilities, like any other nation that rebels against its oppressor, we would be slaves to this day. However, because G-d took us out, He stamped a seal of freedom on all the generations, and so even we are free men eternally. This is what the Torah says in our parsha (Vayikra 25:42), "For they are My servants, whom I have taken out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold in the manner of a slave." The existence of slavery of Am Yisrael is not possible!

A Jew who sells himself as a slave and does not want to go free, even after six years, removes from himself the title, "ben Yisrael." R. Bachya notes that it does not say, "If you buy a Yisrael slave," but rather, "a Hebrew slave." (Shemot 21:2) Through this word choice, the Torah seeks to relate him to the very same state of the Jews in Egypt before Matan Torah, when they were still slaves and G-d was called, "the G-d of the Hebrews."

Based on this, R. Bachya explains why the pierced slave is brought specifically to the door and doorpost, since the symbol of the exodus to freedom was the blood on the doorposts of the door. One who returns himself to the state of slavery out of his own desire -- "I love my master" -- should be pierced on the door, and the blood from his earlobe should be sprinkled on the doorposts, just as at the time of the exodus to freedom they put blood on the doorposts. This is to show that the slave is coming to add, on his own initiative, years of slavery, in addition to the four hundred years that were declared on Am Yisrael.

"When you take the people out of Egypt, You will serve G-d on this mountain." (Shemot 3:12) The freedom of a Jew is through his service of G-d: "Servants of time are truly slaves; a servant of G-d is the only free man." Since the character of freedom is a trait ingrained in each and every Jew, therefore slavery is not eternal, and even the pierced slave who likes slavery goes out to freedom in the Jubilee year, "You shall proclaim freedom throughout the land for all its inhabitants." (Vayikra 25:10)

Rav Kook on Parashat Behar: The Intrinsic Sanctity of the Land of Israel

The Objection of the Ridvaz
Rabbi Yaakov David Willowski (1845-1913) of Safed, known as the “Ridvaz,” was one of the most vociferous opponents to the hetter mechirah — the temporary sale of land in Israel to a non-Jew in order to avoid the restrictions of working the land during the Shemitah year. More interesting than his Halachic objections to the sale, however, is the philosophical argument that the rabbi of Safed raised.

The stated purpose of the hetter, the Ridvaz wrote, is to uphold the mitzvah of Yishuv Ha’aretz, settling the Land, by allowing the fledgling agricultural settlements in the Land of Israel to grow and prosper. But if the legal sale is indeed effective, then the Land would lose its sanctity and the special agricultural mitzvot — tithes, the Shemitah year, and so on — would no longer apply. And if the Land is not holy, there is no longer a mitzvah to settle the Land. Thus the hetter in effect undermines the very goal it was designed to support!

To paraphrase the Ridvaz: the whole purpose of our return to EretzYisrael is to fulfill its special mitzvot and experience its unique sanctity. If we use loopholes and legal fictions to avoid these mitzvot, we may as well be living in Warsaw or New York!

Rav Kook and the Hetter
Despite common belief, Rav Kook was not in fact the author of the hetter mechirah. This legal mechanism was first designed for the Shemitah year of 1889. At that time, Jewish farmers in Eretz Yisrael, whose livelihood depended upon the export of wine and citrus fruits, turned to the leading Halachic authorities in Europe to find a way to avoid the ruin of the fragile industry they were struggling to develop. Were they to let the land lie fallow, the young orchards would suffer greatly, and the export business they had built up would be lost. They also feared that land left fallow could be lost to squatters and thieves. This was particularly problematic due to Ottoman Empire land laws, which allowed ownership of uncultivated land to be challenged by squatters.

In response to this difficult situation, three prominent rabbis met in Vilna and devised the hetter mechirah, based on similar legal sales to avoid the prohibitions involved with bechorot (firstborn animals) and chametzon Passover. The hetter was approved by famed Halachic authority Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spector. However, many prominent rabbis opposed it, including some of the greatest authorities of the time - and the controversy over the hetter mechirah was born.

As rabbi of the town of Yaffo and its surrounding communities, Rav Kook needed to take a position regarding the hetter. While still in Europe, he had discussed the issue with his father-in-law the Aderet, (later chief rabbi of Jerusalem), and they both decided against supporting it.

But after coming to Eretz Yisrael and seeing first-hand the great need for the hetter, Rav Kook changed his mind and became a staunch supporter of the leniency. Prior to the Sabbatical year of 1910, he penned a Halachic treatise in defense of the hetter mechirah, entitled Shabbat Ha’aretz.

The Sanctity of the Land
In his remarks defending the hetter, Rav Kook responded to the Ridvaz’s objection that the hetter undermines its own stated goal — supporting the settlement of the Land of Israel — because selling the Land to non-Jews annuls its sanctity and circumvents its special mitzvot.

This argument, Rav Kook explained, is based on the false premise that the special holiness of Eretz Yisrael is limited to המצוות התלויות בארץ, those mitzvot that only apply in the Land. According to this view, once these special mitzvot are no longer binding, there is no longer any holiness to the Land and no mitzvah to settle it.

But this is not the true outlook of the Torah. Instead, we should compare the mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel to the mitzvah of studying Torah. While it is true that Torah study enables one to learn how to properly discharge all mitzvot, one cannot say that the value of Torah study is only as a preparation to fulfilling mitzvot. In fact, there is an intrinsic holiness in the act of studying Torah. Even when studying subjects which have no current practical application, this study is nonetheless invaluable. As the Sages taught: “One who studies the laws of the Chatat offering is considered as if he offered a Chatat ” (Menachot 110a).

The holiness of the Land of Israel is independent of those mitzvot that may be fulfilled while living there. Just the opposite: the primary holiness of the Land is reflected in the mitzvah to settle it, and the obligation of mitzvot ha-teluyot ba’aretz is an expression of this special holiness. As the Chachamim taught, merely living in Eretz Yisrael is equal to all the mitzvot in the Torah - and this ‘equation’ includes those mitzvot that only apply in the Land.

Equal to all the Mitzvot
This statement about the overriding value of living in the Land appears in the Sifri (sec. 80) in the context of the following story:

“Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua and Rabbi Yochanan HaSandlar set out to travel to Nitzivim [in Babylonia] in order to study Torah from Rabbi Yehudah ben Beteira. But when they arrived in Sidon, they remembered the Land of Israel. They lifted their eyes, and their tears flowed. They rent their garments and quoted the verse: “You will expel them and dwell in their land” (Devarim 12:29). Then they returned home and declared: Dwelling in the Land of Israel is equivalent to all of the mitzvot of the Torah.”

These scholars had pure motives for leaving Eretz Yisrael. They sought to learn Torah from one of the leading sages of the generation. Yet in the end, they decided that the mitzvah of dwelling in the Land takes precedence. They placed greater value on living in Eretz Yisrael, even at a time when the country suffered from foreign rule and economic hardship. The mitzvah of living in the Land was still in force, even though the Sages of that time found legal loopholes — similar to the hettermechirah — to lighten the financial burden of certain mitzvot (such as Hillel’s pruzbul, and avoiding tithes by bringing produce into the house by way of the courtyard or the roof (see Berachot 35b)).

Why did these scholars quote this particular verse, “You will expel them and dwell in their land"? Apparently, they noted that the word 'their' is extraneous; it could have just read “and dwell in the land.” They deduced from here that even when the Land of Israel has not been fully released from the control of foreign nations — even when it was still considered “their land,” the land of the Canaanite nations, and many of the land-dependent mitzvot were not yet incumbent — we are nonetheless obligated to dwell in the Land.

This lesson was also valid during the time of Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua and Rabbi Yochanan HaSandlar. Even after the destruction of the Temple, even in a time of foreign rule, the mitzvah of dwelling in the Land is still equal to all the mitzvot.

The author of Kaftor VaFerach (Rabbi Ishtori HaParchi, 1280-1355) similarly wrote that the sanctity of the Land of Israel is independent of the mitzvot ha-teluyot ba’aretz. His proof: why did Yaakov, Yosef, and Moshe all seek to be buried in the Land when it had not yet been conquered and sanctified?

In summary, Rav Kook concluded, it is not only possible to be lenient in our days, it is proper to do so, in order to encourage settlement of the Land. Furthermore, the hetter does not cancel all aspects of the Sabbatical year. It only permits those types of agricultural labor that are rabbinically prohibited. Thus the Sabbatical year is not completely uprooted. This hetter, Rav Kook explained, is similar to the permission — and obligation — to desecrate the Sabbath in life-threatening situations. As the Sages wrote: “The Torah teaches that we should desecrate a single Sabbath for one whose life is in danger, so that he will be able to keep many future Sabbaths” (Yoma 85b). Similarly, by permitting certain agricultural work now, we will enable the full observance of the Shemitah year in the future.

(Sapphire from the Land of Israel. Adapted from the Preface to Shabbat Ha’aretz, pp. 61-63 by Rav Chanan Morrison.)

Only the mountain remains

by Rabbi Dov Berel Wein

The parsha begins with the word that defines its name – b’har – on the mountain. The mountain naturally is Sinai and the Torah’s emphasis is to reinforce Judaism’s core belief that our Torah is God-given and not the work of a committee over centuries. This basic belief lies at the heart of many of the contentious disputes that have marked Jewish life over the ages.

While original splinter groups, such as the Saducees and the Karaites, did not openly deny the validity of the Written Torah as being godly in origin, they strenuously denied the holiness of the Oral Law of Sinai and denigrated its rabbinic interpretations and decrees. This led to serious splits within the Jewish people and to bitter recriminations that lasted centuries. In all these instances, the divinity of Torah and of its Oral Law always eventually won out. Deviant movements eventually fell away from the main body of the Jewish people, both individually and as a potent group in influencing Jewish life and mores.

The "mountain" referred to is the one at Sinai where the Torah was given to Israel. It is a difficult mountain to ascend, The Psalmist asks: "Who can ascend the mountain of God?" But as difficult as it is to ascend the mountain, it is even more difficult to remain there. The Psalmist again intones "who can maintain oneself, in the holiness of God’s place?" The struggle about maintaining the Jewish people on the mountain of God in belief and faith has been the hallmark of Jewish life over millennia. It has not abated in our time.

Jewish secularism comes in two different and divergent forms. One is simply that the Torah’s way of life and value system does not harmonize with modern society and its demands. Shabat, kashrut, etc. are all too restrictive to be functional in today’s world. The Jewish people cannot afford to be so different from the rest of the world. The mountain may have had its purpose at one time, but that time has now passed. New ideologies and circumstances have rendered it obsolete. So, for them the mountain no longer exists.

A second group denies the existence of the mountain altogether. There never was a mountain – it is all an urban legend fostered by the rabbis over the ages. In effect, our grandfathers were all liars or naïve believers in legends and stories for which there is no current historical scientific evidence. Aside from these two groupings there are groups who wish to be included in the religion of Judaism and who do not see themselves as being secular. But, in varying degrees, they follow the ideas of the Saducees and the Karaites though they essentially also deny that the mountain has anything to do with God and divine origins.

History shows that in the long run such philosophies and movements give way to the pressures of time and circumstance and eventually lose their influence and power. At the end of the day, only the mountain remains as it always has, challenging us to ascend it and maintain ourselves upon it.

Biden Risks American Lives to Protect Hamas

by Daniel Greenfield

The United States of America has been conducting backchannel talks with Hamas to ask the Islamic terrorist organization not to attack American soldiers helping deliver aid to Gaza.

We "passed that message back through the appropriate channels to Hamas," the White House spokesman admitted. Rather than warning Hamas not to attack or it will suffer the consequences, Biden is pleading with it from a position of weakness.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently admitted at a congressional hearing that American soldiers operating Biden’s disastrous “aid pier” for Gaza could come under attack from Islamic terrorists.

Biden has not sent a single soldier to recover American hostages being held by Hamas, but there are now soldiers in the line of fire in order to send aid to Gaza.

In the event American forces on the pier come under attack, they would be allowed to fight back, Austin promised. But based on the rules of engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the terrorists have to do is attack from a mosque or from behind civilians, and American soldiers would be banned from fighting back.

And those are the ways that Hamas tends to attack.

Late last month, Islamic terrorists did fire mortar shells at the pier, forcing a UN team to flee for cover and damaging some of our equipment. After the attack it was announced that the Israeli military would be tasked with providing security for the pier since Biden’s efforts to recruit Muslim allies to protect it had failed.



After the mortar attack, the terror pier was moved to the Israeli port of Ashdod, allegedly because of the bad weather, but also because of the terrorist attacks. It’s still sitting in Ashdod, despite having been completed because it’s too fragile to move in stormy weather. What’s going to happen if there’s bad weather once the pier is in place? If this one breaks, we’ll probably have to build another one.

But after having wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on the terror pier, Biden is waiting on the Israelis to secure it. Even with the Israelis physically attaching the pier, so that Biden can claim that there are American “no boots on the ground”, American personnel will still be within firing range of Islamic terrorists in Gaza.

This would not be a threat if Biden would stop interfering with Israel’s war on the terrorists. But the pier is part of the Biden administration’s campaign to undermine Israel’s war effort. And that’s putting American lives at risk.

Beyond the terror pier, there are now reports that after Israel finally took control of the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza (despite years of lies about an ‘open-air concentration camp’, Egypt, an Arab Muslim country, has its own border crossing with the Islamic terror state), Biden wants America to step in.

Unwilling to have Israel control the Rafah crossing into Egypt, where the majority of Hamas’ terror forces are based, negotiations are reportedly underway to bring in a “private American security company” that “has operated in several African and Middle Eastern countries, guarding strategic sites like oil fields, airports, army bases and sensitive border crossings” which “employs veterans of elite U.S. Army units.” This is likely to be Blackwater (which has been renamed several times) or some company like it with similar capabilities.

The ex-military personnel won’t count as “boots on the ground” but having private security contractors performing military tasks and then getting killed is no better than American military forces dying in combat with terrorists. The use of contractors during the War on Terror helped hide casualty rates, but didn’t lessen the fact that Americans were still being killed. As we saw in Benghazi.

Above all else, there is no reason for American forces, no matter how they’re classified to be tasked with securing the so-called aid crossings, whether it’s Biden’s terror pier or the Rafah crossing, when the Israelis should be in charge.

And the Israelis want to be in charge.

The only reason Americans are being put in harm’s way is because Biden doesn’t want the Israelis in control. And after trying to solicit anyone else to step in, Americans are being put at risk to protect Islamic terrorists from Israel.

Opponents of the Jewish State have often accused Israel of putting Americans at risk, but it’s those opponents, especially in the Biden administration, whose obsession with protecting Muslim terrorists from Israel is really endangering us.

What is America’s national interest in protecting Iran’s terror proxies in Gaza?

Set aside any sentimental attachments to the Jewish State or any religious and cultural sympathies, and there’s still no conceivable reason to prop up another of the terrorist ‘dragon’s teeth’ that Iran has sown in Yemen, Lebanon and Israel.

The lineage of the ‘Palestinian’ cause can be traced back to the Soviet Union’s Marxist terrorist operations, Nazi Germany’s influence operation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and, more recently, the Islamic revolution in Iran. What all of those have in common was that they were efforts to subvert the Western presence in the Middle East by recruiting and funding Muslim terror groups.

America had tried to stay out of it until Jimmy Carter decided to make common cause with Islamic terrorists. This disastrous policy led to the Islamic takeover of Iran and then Afghanistan, and to the deaths of thousands of Americans. Carter also embraced the ‘Palestinian’ cause and Clinton committed us to spending endless billions trying to create an Islamic terror state in Israel.

Until Trump, no president had the courage to try and disentangle us from the ‘Palestinians’. And until Biden, no president was this close to committing American troops to protecting a population that universally wants to kill us.

Israel wants to end the terror threat from Gaza and the West Bank. Biden should let it. Life was a whole lot better for everyone before Clinton’s experiment in ‘nation building’ led to endless waves of terror in pursuit of a ‘Palestinian’ state.

If Biden really cared about the lives of Arab Muslims living in Gaza, he would let Israel quickly finish the job of putting down the terrorists. Like the rules of engagement imposed on American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, the only thing that the restrictions imposed on the Israeli military have done is get good men killed while dragging out a war that could have been ended long ago.

Too many American civilians were already killed in Islamic terror attacks in Israel. If Israel is willing to drain the terror swamps in the West Bank and Gaza, let it.

No American should die to protect Hamas or its supporters in Gaza.

The idea that we were going to neutralize ‘trouble spots’ through nation building has been tested and failed badly. While Biden washed his hands of Afghanistan, he still insists on keeping the mirage of a ‘Palestinian’ state going even though it predated our involvement in Afghanistan by a decade and failed even worse.

It’s time to end the worst and longest nation building experiment to date.

The obsession with creating a ‘Palestinian state’ has cost billions of dollars and the lives of American civilians. Now Biden is risking the death of American soldiers, in or out of uniform, to keep the nation building dream alive.

Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, but now he wants to get us into Gaza.

Palestinians Threaten to Attack US Troops

by Bassam Tawil 

• [The Palestinians] seem confident that if the Biden administration is rewarding them for malign behavior, it is clearly working, so why not keep it up?
• The Palestinians are hoping to scare the Americans and prevent them from cooperating with Israel on the future of the Gaza Strip after the war.
• The Biden administration did not, it seems, even demand that, in return for the humanitarian aid, the hostages be released or that the terrorists stop launching rockets into Israel.
• Apparently, the Biden administration did not even request assurances that the aid would not be seized and diverted by the terrorists.
• Hamas has earned at least $500 million from the aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war in October 2023, according Ehud Yaari, an Israeli expert on Arab and Palestinian affairs.
• [The Palestinians] consider the presence of US troops in the region as another form of "occupation" and an unwelcome intervention in the internal affairs of the Arabs in the Middle East.
• As long as supplies are getting into the Gaza Strip, Hamas will not stop fighting or free the hostages.
• Because of the Gaza pier, the Biden administration has made it immensely harder to free the hostages and end the war.

Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip are threatening to attack American troops posted at the floating pier built by the US government on the Gaza coast. Pictured: National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby displays a photo of trucks transporting aid to Gaza across the pier, at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 17, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

More than $300 million has been spent by the Biden administration to construct a floating pier on the coast of the Gaza Strip to aid the local Palestinian population. Rather than expressing gratitude to the US, the Palestinians have publicly denounced the Biden administration and warned Arabs and Palestinians not to cooperate with the project.

They seem confident that if the Biden administration is rewarding them for malign behavior, it is clearly working, so why not keep it up?

The Palestinians are hoping to scare the Americans and prevent them from cooperating with Israel on the future of the Gaza Strip after the war.

The US move coincides with the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group is continuing to hold hostage more than 120 Israelis who were abducted from Israel on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its cross-border invasion from the Gaza Strip.

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Iran's New Proxy: American Universities

by Robert Williams

• "We are watching the demonstrations, and we like what we see, but it should not end with this.... These protestors are our people and will support Iran in an Iran-U.S. confrontation; Iran can repeat in the U.S. what it did in Lebanon but on a grander scale because the 'Hizbullah -style' groups in the U.S. are 'much larger' than in Lebanon.... America is the Great Satan and our enemy, but we have hope in these areas." — Foad Izadi, Teheran University, who studied at University of Houston and Louisiana State University, Ofogh TV (Iran), April 26, 2024.
• [Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim] Qassem – who appeared almost taken aback at the eagerness of students on US campuses to join Hamas in its call for the genocide of Jews – was hopeful about the ability of America's students to help Hezbollah destroy Israel by turning the U.S. against its ally.
• "We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the [Alavi] foundation," Adam Kaufmann, investigations chief at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, November 22, 2009.
• The Alavi Foundation, according to its website, has indeed funded many of the universities where protests were taking place. The universities include those of the Ivy league, such as Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Rutgers, as well as UCLA and many others.
• In 2016, Harvard employed Ali Akbar Alikhani – who had warned about "the Jewish threat" -- from Tehran University's Faculty of World Studies, which is reportedly closely tied to the Iranian ruling regime, as a visiting scholar at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern studies....
• Hooshang Amirahmadi, the founder of the American Iranian Council (AIC), has admitted that the lobbying organization was created by the Islamic Republic of Iran to work for its interests in the US. Amirahmadi has had and continues to enjoy a successful academic career at Rutgers University.
• Some faculty members at Rutgers recently called for the genocide of Jews.
• In addition, at least five US universities -- Virginia Tech University, the University of Washington, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Clarkson University, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette -- have allegedly been cooperating with Iranian entities that are sanctioned by the US and the European Union, including the Iranian Aerospace Research Institute, Iran University of Science and Technology, and the Sharif University of Technology.
• Iran can only be rejoicing at the moral and educational collapse they have helped create on American university campuses, which are grooming America's future teachers, judges and political leaders. Now, however, these campuses appear to be incubating America's future terrorists and creating a national security threat.

Iran can only be rejoicing at the moral and educational collapse they have helped create on American university campuses, which are grooming America's future teachers, judges and political leaders. Now, however, these campuses appear to be incubating America's future terrorists and creating a national security threat. Pictured: Pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protesters outside of Columbia University on April 24, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

"Iran, you make us proud" and "Yemen, Yemen make us proud, turn another ship around," were among the chants by the pro-Hamas college students and the paid activists who organized them on U.S. campuses. They declared a "student intifada," conducted a Hamas-inspired "Day of Rage," bowed down to Allah and called for "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."

Meanwhile, Iran and the mouthpieces of its Islamist regime were paying extremely close attention. According to Tehran University Professor Foad Izadi, who is American-educated and considered one of Iran's main experts on the U.S. and a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime:

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US Administration Abandons Israel, Empowers Enemies

by Majid Rafizadeh

• Worse, abandoning Israel sends a troubling message to U.S. allies worldwide: in times of crisis, do not rely on American support.
• The Biden administration has eroded trust and damaged U.S. credibility on the global stage even further than it already had done after surrendering Afghanistan and allowing China to kill more than a million Americans with Covid-19, or poisoning to death more than 80,000 Americans each year with fentanyl, or permitting China to commit massive espionage and intellectual property theft with no consequences at all.
• Biden's decision has projected an image of weakness rather than leadership, further tarnishing America's reputation as a steadfast defender of the free world. Instead, the Biden administration is seen globally as siding with terrorists -- the Taliban in Afghanistan, the terror-funding Qataris, the genocidal Communist government of China, and the annual winner of the world's top, largest, leading "state sponsor of terrorism," Iran.
• Such a milestone shift in U.S. foreign policy displays a concerning departure from longstanding principles of backing the Free World. Overall, the development is deeply detrimental to U.S. interests. It threatens the stability of international relations, and for the perception of America's role as a leading global power, it is nothing short of devastating.

The Biden administration's abandonment of Israel sends a troubling message to U.S. allies worldwide: in times of crisis, do not rely on American support. Pictured: U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on April 24, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In an unprecedented move in US governance, the Biden administration has embarked on a policy that departs from its longstanding support for Israel.

Instead, there is a discernible tilt towards policies that favor the adversaries of the United States, notably Iran and its proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as China and Russia. This strategic realignment marks a significant shift in US foreign policy and has generated a substantial risk both domestically and internationally.

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Why the Palestinian Authority Should Not Return to Gaza

by Bassam Tawil

• The Israeli government, according to reports, is being pressured by the Biden administration to send the money to the PA. This addled and dangerous proposal amounts to expecting the Jews to support the same people who are murdering them. The Biden administration has also been launching a legal and diplomatic offensive to discredit, isolate, and penalize Israel for trying to defend itself against terrorist attacks.
• Meanwhile, the PA, instead of acknowledging that it is terrified to go back to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, is trying to pressure Israel into accepting the creation of a Palestinian state and releasing the tax revenues. Unbelievably, the PA and the Biden administration apparently want Israel to grant Palestinians a state that will be ruled by the same murders, rapists and kidnappers who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.
• Abbas might one day return to the Gaza Strip – but only when he sees that Hamas has lost all military might and is no longer in control. Meanwhile, he feels safe and secure being in the West Bank, where Israel is in charge of overall security and is fighting against Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist proxies. He knows that without Israel's security presence in the West Bank, Hamas would have killed him and toppled the PA long ago.
• Allowing Hamas to win its war against Israel would delight two countries deeply committed to supporting terrorism. The first is Qatar, an oil-field protected by a US air base, and a country with which President Joe Biden's brother, James, according to court testimony, might reportedly have had business dealings
• The second country is Iran, repeatedly designated as the "leading state sponsor of terrorism" and currently racing toward nuclear weapons capability. The Iranian regime – which presently controls four Middle East capitals in addition to its own -- Sanaa, Damascus, Beirut and Baghdad -- wishes to take over the Middle East, as well as oil-and-mineral-rich Sudan. Iran's rulers would undoubtedly not only pave the way for more October 7-style atrocities against Israel, but also other neighbors -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain -- especially if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.
• Abbas, fearful of being called a traitor, is reluctant to take action against the terrorists. It might mean his death. Additionally, he is most likely not pursuing the terrorists because they do not directly threaten him or the PA.
• If a Palestinian leader does not even have the bravery to condemn the unimaginable Hamas atrocities of October 7, how can one expect him to confront terrorism emanating from his Palestinian Authority?
• The Gaza Strip needs moderate and pragmatic leaders who will embark on a process of deradicalizing and reeducating Gazans to lead peaceful, prosperous and constructive lives, freed of subjugation by their leaders, who will finally prepare their people for peace in the region. At the moment, unfortunately, among the Palestinians, no such leaders exist.

Unbelievably, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Biden administration apparently want Israel to grant Palestinians a state that will be ruled by the same murders, rapists and kidnappers who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023. Pictured: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on February 7, 2024. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Those who believe that the Palestinian Authority (PA) should replace the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip are either gullible, badly uninformed , or living in delusions. The PA can presumably handle civilian issues in the Gaza Strip and pay salaries to civil servants, but it cannot – and will never – take on Hamas directly.

The Israel-Hamas war began more than seven months ago, and it appears that the terrorist organization's military capabilities have not yet been totally neutralized. It could realistically take months, if not years, to destroy the military infrastructure that, over the past two decades, Qatar, Iran, Hamas, and various other terrorist organizations have erected in the Gaza Strip.

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Igrot Hare’aya – Letters of Rav Kook: Torah Literature Published by an Old Friend

#217

Date and Place: 11 Menachem Av, 5669, Rechovot

Recipient: Rav Nisan Rabin, a childhood friend of Rav Kook.

Body: I am living in Eretz Yisrael and am presently spending time in the moshava of Rechovot, as I do every year during the harvest season of grapes, which are such lovely vineyards of the holy soil. I just read with bliss and was filled with satisfaction and joy of the heart, your valued present, the dear and pleasant book of your honored, brilliant father, my dear friend (Rav Moshe Yitzchak Rabin, a dayan in Ponevitch). You are so fortunate to have merited to be a son who brings honor to his father, especially in this great matter of spreading throughout the world the Torah thoughts of the pure heart and holy spirit of your father, the beloved, righteous scholar. Thank you so much for the great delight you brought me. May you merit to publish all of the writings of your father, whom I know to be of sound reason and deep intellect, which went along with his great diligence and the pure fear of Heaven that lit up his heart. This joined wonderfully with his love of truth, sharp intellect, broad knowledge, and righteous humility. All of these are a sure guarantee that his works are dear and the benefit to those who learn his Torah will be great. When many delve into them, knowledge will grow.

I also want to praise you for your pamphlet that you sent me (not yet published), which you wrote in a unique style. May you, my beloved, take this accomplishment and all matters of sound logic, which is based on the underpinnings of pure belief, and written in a style that can penetrate the heart of a certain segment of our generation’s young people, who are fainting due to [spiritual] thirst, and make sure that it is made available. It would be terrible to withhold the spirit of Hashem that it engenders. Whenever Hashem awakens one’s heart, whatever he can accomplish, whomever he can save, whichever hearts he can improve, whether many or few, the magnitude of the obligation is too great to express. [It would be enough] to just weaken the stench in the suffocating air of ignorant, chutzpa-full materialism, which is actually increasing specifically before its imminent demise.

It is proper for a writer of your great skill to insert into his theses the pure ideas of the idea of national awareness in its holy and truthful root. This would enable many hearts to be filled with a love of the Holy Land and the holy belief in the resurrection of Hashem’s nation in its Land. This is especially true at a time like this, when the movement of life and the flow of political and spiritual life indicate deep signs of Hashem’s imminent redemption of His nation, the glittering of the horn of Israel from the holy mountains. This finds expression in the beginning of the children’s return to their borders, and the elevation of the spirit of the nation to the heights of the holy mountains. When this reality enters the fabric of all of the thoughts that flood the world about questions of time and life, it gives all of them strength, a glow, a flash of sanctity, and the splendor of honor.

At this time, it is not just a matter of prophetic visions; matters are progressing and occurring. It is the obligation of all of us to not stand off in the distance, but to work with Hashem, each according to his abilities. Most importantly, it is an obligation of every talented writer who has the spirit of Hashem within him [to write]. I hope that you will succeed in this way, having a charm accompany your writing. May all who help you publish for the welfare of the masses of the dispersed nation of Hashem, which is under spiritual attack even more than physical attack [be blessed]. You should share the holy, lofty thought of the reawakening of the nation on holy soil. It is now its time to appear with many lights from different directions.