Halacha and the Internet

By Rabbi Ari D. Kahn

While Jews, especially traditional ones, seem to have an aversion to the concept of evolution, halacha itself, the stuff of which Jewish observance is made, may be seen as evolving. We who accept that Torah is the Word of God, and that the Written and Oral Torah were given to us, through Moshe, are aware that, as new situations arise, halacha adapts – has always adapted - in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary fashion.

At times, though, catalysts of more dramatic change present themselves: Cataclysms, especially those that cause massive population shifts, tend to impact halachic thinking and action in more discernable increments. Nonetheless, we may say that halacha is impacted and affected, rather than pointing to blatant, obvious "changes." Part of the impact is due to what and how people learn.[1]

Throughout Jewish history, catastrophe has often given rise to the perceived need to collect data, to preserve what runs the risk of being lost. Thus, after the destruction of the First Beit Hamikdash we find the canonization of Tanach. After the destruction of the Second Beit Hamikdash, the Bar Kochva rebellion and Hadrionic persecution, the Mishna emerged in an edited form. After a major earthquake destroyed the north of Israel, the Talmud Yerushalmi was edited. In the wake of the Spanish Inquisition, the Shulchan Oruch emerged. This reaction, which we may call "preservation as a means of self-preservation," is not always immediate, but the pattern of reactive codification and archiving is unmistakable.

This pattern may be evident in our own generation: In the aftermath of the Holocaust, countless collections of data have been published, books that gather and preserve what might otherwise be lost. The reaction to such large-scale tragedy and loss seems, once again, to be an urge to preserve, a self-preservation instinct translated into self-preservation of our heritage, our collective memory, our cumulative and accumulated knowledge. Creativity, it would seem, is spurred by a different type of atmosphere, one which encourages the individual to express himself and suggest new and bold ideas.

To be sure, these trends are not absolute, iron-clad rules: Every generation, even those living in the shadow of catastrophe, has had some chidush, some new and creative idea, alongside the compilations and collections. In fact, a careful look at the interplay of political and intellectual history indicates that the ebb and flow of originality and compilation is often independent of political or geo-political events: Sometimes it is not the catastrophic or the idyllic conditions which affect learning, but new realities or inventions that are the impetus for intellectual changes of focus. The most easily identified case in point is the advent of the printing press. Some scholars[2] go so far as to cite the invention of the printing press as the major factor in the delineation between the Rishonim and the Achronim: Precious books that had been painstakingly copied by hand suddenly became available and accessible, making what had once been rare and treasured texts commonplace. This same technological advance actually changed the way we think and the way we learn, shifting the process of learning away from the teacher and toward the information stored and disseminated in books. Ironically, the wealth of information made available to ever-increasing numbers of readers by the printing press was, in some ways, a double-edged sword, as it engendered a weakening of the mesorah[3] and sacrificed quality of understanding for quantity of information.

In our generation, the access to books and information is unparalleled, and the collections in individual homes are often staggering compared to the meager offerings of the libraries of yesteryear.[4] But there is another factor in the information explosion, a factor far more powerful and far-reaching: the computer. Today's personal computer can contain many more books, as well as search programs that allow almost instant access to more information, than most of the greatest of rabbis andposkim ever saw. Today's compilers and collectors of information will have more data at their fingertips than scholars of previous generations could have imagined, and the challenge will often be what not to include rather than the search for relevant sources. Today, learning requires a modified set of skills: those who learn with the aid of computers and search programs must be skilled at triage, whereas the ability to identify and access sources has become passé.

As has been lamented by some, in this generation more and more books appear about more and more obscure laws, blessings and customs. The endless data evolves into a peculiar genre of halachic writing that tends to be stringent in its conclusions, especially when written in English. If leniencies can be found, more often than not they are buried in footnotes, often written only in Hebrew. As a result, only scholars have unfettered access to leniencies, while the layperson will be guided toward strict or even overly-strict opinions. The ever-growing number of books of this ilk is clearly at least partially responsible for the growing radicalism in observance, adding fuel to the sociological engine that powers the increasing tendency to adopt strict[5]opinions as mainstream practice.[6]

There is another facet of the personal computing revolution that has become a significant factor in changing the way halacha is learned, transmitted, and observed, one that also provides mindboggling quantities of information: the internet. Traditionally, searching for halachic guidance has meant earnestly learning the relevant sugya in the Gemara and Rishonim and then consulting the siman or s'if in the Shulchan Aruch, relevant responsa literature and later authorities; today, many people have increasingly begun to simply look where they have become accustomed to looking for all other information: on the internet. Instead of seeking the opinion of the Gadol Hador, we are the generation that turns to Google - Dor HaGoogle.

As in many other aspects of the "world wide web," the search for halacha is a mixed bag. While some sites have a plethora of quality classes, lectures and articles on all aspects of Jewish thought and law, there are many other sites that contain information of wildly divergent quality and reliability. In addition, all types of “discussions” may be found on blogs, where the banter is anonymous and participants feel free to hurl invectives, insults and even give “rulings” on matters of Jewish thought and practice. As often as not, the ideas and opinions expressed on blogs are not authoritative, or may be nothing more than one anonymous individual's opinion. Often, these blog discussions are illustrative of the confluence of several modern trends: A halachic discussion on the web may be nothing more than a cycle in which one blogger quotes an overly stringent ruling or opinion found in a modern English halachic compilation, and respondents express the almost inevitable backlash to the trend of creeping stringency. Even when bona fide halachic rulings are quoted, these were originally handed down regarding a particular, specific or even an extreme circumstance. Such opinions often pass as general and binding “halacha” in discussion blogs of this sort. The result is a type of discourse so devoid of seriousness as to be unparalleled in the annals of Jewish learning.

And yet, as bad as this phenomenon is for the halachic community and for the integrity of Jewish learning, it is far less insidious than some of the other uses to which bloggers put the internet. There is something even worse than this misguided but innocent give-and-take between those who quote overly-stringent popular halachic literature and those who respond and react out of frustration: There are others who use blog discussions and websites to advance their own revolutionary agendas, who seek to change the mesorah by changing what is meant by halacha or even the need for halacha. We may go so far as to say that the disconnection of the halachic process from personal contact between the layperson and his or her spiritual and halachic mentor has unleashed the forces that had previously been held at bay by this very personal connection: Individuals and groups that seek to undermine the evolutionary processes that have enabled Jewish communities to respond and adapt to changing realities have become empowered by the internet, to an unprecedented degree. While these forces have existed in and around the halachic process for thousands of years, the counterbalance of direct contact with spiritual leaders has been replaced by equal and open access to a cold, impersonal computer screen that communicates specious ideas to vulnerable, isolated Jews.

Has the internet created a new epoch in Jewish history? Time will tell if the impact is of the same magnitude as the invention of the printing press, but there is at least one lesson to be learned from the Twentieth Century: Information cannot be suppressed. Rabbis, teachers and poskim must be prepared to lead and to teach laypeople who have more information than ever before - even if few may actually properly understand this information within the context of Jewish law and tradition. Religious leadership in the Twenty-First Century (and beyond) must take responsibility for capitalizing on the wealth of information available to all their students and followers, and create a new generation of learning with its own particular strengths. Today's Torah scholars are neither Rishonim nor Achronim; the learning of Slobodka and Volozhin is a memory, as is the psak of Rav Moshe Feinstein and Rav Henkin. Will the glut of information usher in an age of greater superficiality, or will it allow halachic minds, freed from the more mundane tasks of collecting source material, to reach new heights of creativity? Will the information explosion create a new watershed moment in Jewish intellectual history, akin to the line drawn between theRishonim and Achronim? Will we be known as the generation of "Rav Google", a generation gorging itself on confusing or even useless information, or will we master the web and use it as a tool for deeper understanding?

As the masses turn to the internet for all manner of information, bona fide poskim or their proxies must create a web presence. Otherwise, random, renegade opinions - which to a great extent are the reaction to the overly simplistic, overly strict English language compilations of Jewish law - will have a deleterious impact on Jewish practice. Today’s generation will increasingly look on line; the question is, what will they find?

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[1] See Hayim Soloveitchik, "Rupture And Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy." Tradition, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Summer 1994) http://www.lookstein.org/links/orthodoxy.htm

[2] See Shlomo Zalman Havlin: על 'החתימה הספרותית' כיסוד החלוקה לתקופות בהלכה","

מחקרים בספרות התלמודית; יום עיון לרגל מלאת שמונים שנה לשאול ליברמן, ירושלים תשמ"ג עמ' 192-148

[3] See Shlomo Zalman Havlin, "Bein Rishonim Lachronim B'inyanei Nusach"

http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/toshba/mechkar/nusach.htm

[4] Once when I was studying with Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik he went through a list of sefarim he had in his home growing up- quite a limited list indeed. He added that precisely because they had so few books, they learned everything in each book.

[5] Often, rulings which are deemed “strict” are not strict at all, rather the perception is due to ignorance or lax practices of previous generations – generations deprived of education by the ravages of war and persecution, exile and deprivation.

[6] There are certainly other factors as well: The baal teshuvah phenomenon which has, on the one hand, invigorated the observant community, while on the other hand it is a community generally devoid of masorah and lacking any mimetic tradition. This community necessarily embraces the written word, and is a major consumer of English language halachic literature. This is coupled with a psychological need of many among the newly observant to adopt extreme positions, perhaps as some type of "penance" for past behavior.

Another factor is the increasing acceptance by Diaspora communities of the customs of Israel, or more precisely the rulings of Israeli poskim from Bnei Braq and Yerushalayim. These customs are often the product of a society that consciously adopted stringent rulings which deviated from the rules of psak that had traditionally been accepted in the Diaspora. The motivation of these more stringent poskim of Eretz Yisrael was the notion that in order to “deserve” to settle the Land of Israel one should go beyond the letter of the law.

Israel (not so) Random Thoughts

By Jason Gold

1. Tzipi the Traitor? Nah, Just another Day for the Left in Israel.

2. Israel’s China Leverage.

1. Tzipi the Traitor? Nah, Just another Day for the Left in Israel

I am a big fan of Isi Leibler. I enjoy his writings and in fact you can even see his blog (Word From Jerusalem) listed on our blog roll. However, I’m not quite sure why he is in such a twist in his posting here about Tzipi Livni’s recent comments to American Jewish audiences and to journalists James Bennett and Jeffrey Goldberg. OK, so Livni advocates more America pressure on Netanyahu and that Bibi should have capitulated to Obama’s ridiculous demands. She also brings up the dual loyalty canard (not a great idea, Tzipi). Leibler also states “Livni implied that Prime Minister Netanyahu is creating a situation in which American Jews could be compromised by being obliged to choose sides. The Israeli Opposition Leader said “the Prime Minister, deliberately or not, puts Americans into a very complicated situation… in which they need to choose a side, and they don’t want to be in this situation.” She went on to say “it’s a nightmare because we are actually on the same side. We cannot afford this. This is something new. It forced American Jews to take sides.”

Guess what? American Jews are going to have take sides sooner or later. There is a process going on; a process designed by an entity even higher than Livni or Obama to push American Jews to the point where they will have to decide where and with whom they stand, but that’s a story for another posting.

Aside from that, nothing much going on here. Whatever her motives and I’m sure she believes them to be noble , why should Livni be different from any Leftist opposition leader who has tried to undermine a somewhat right-leaning government? Take your pick; Peres, Barak, Beilin etc. All at one time or another (including now) would try to advance their own agenda even when it was not in sync with government (like having secret negotiations with murderers like Arafat when it was clearly illegal). It’s a proud tradition of the Left. Perhaps it is more magnified with Livni because there was so much hype that the Left heaped upon her including that NY Times Sunday Magazine cover anointing her the next leader of Israel. Or more disappointing because her father fought side by side with Begin and may be spinning at in his grave at warp speed over this.

But at the end of the day, does any of this matter? Leibler puts forth the supposition that Livni should resign. He almost but not quite implies treasonous behavior. Perhaps so but perhaps not, but again her resignation, her behavior, her weltanschauung may not matter at all. Why? Because the bottom line is that Israel is moving more and more to the right. Polls show it. They show that the average Israeli is fed up with the lies and promises of an illusory peace with a mythical people, homicidal in nature, with the illusion promulgated by Israelis full of self-loathing for their Jewish heritage. The Left is becoming more and more irrelevant as Labor and the rest of the Left are circling the proverbial bowl and Kadima is in queue. As such, they are becoming shriller and more desperate in their attacks on the right and anything resembling Jewish identity, heritage and culture. But less and less are listening and they are being tuned out. So Isi, let Livini speak. Let people see the depth or lack thereof of her leadership aptitude. She and the rest of her Leftist colleagues are destined for the dustbin of history. Let’s all wish for her what I wish for most of the Left collectively; a good life with good health and happiness way outside of Israeli politics and/or leadership. For some select others, well, solitary confinement and/or a personal escort to the gates of Gehennam via one of the Talmudic-approved forms of execution will do just fine.

2. Israel’s China Leverage.

Rob Miller over at JoshuaPundit has a great piece here about China’s military Chief of Staff paying Israel a visit to discuss mutual military and strategic cooperation. Amazing how this went virtually unreported anywhere in the news-sphere. As Miller correctly points out, Israel has a huge opportunity here. As the sun is setting on the US Empire, and as the treachery in Washington from the White House and State Department towards Israel becomes more manifest (hardly a coincidence now is it?), it is time for Israel to turn its attention to a more “natural” alliance with the next world power in ascendance; i.e. China.

Shocked? Don’t be. With the US and Europe baring their fangs at Israel and with their economies and influence beginning to decline, Israel has a golden opportunity here. China desperately needs Israel technology, know-how and innovation both at the military and non-military level. And let's not forget the recently discovered gas and oil. And not just China. There have been reports circulating that prescient Bank of Israel head Stanley Fischer has been quietly orchestrating a priority shift of Israel’s trade relationships to China and South America over the US and Europe due to the Shekel’s increasing strength over the fading euro and dollar. This would be a welcome and necessary move in once and for all ending Israel’s addict-like dependence on the US. The strategic leverage Israel would gain in this relationship would be enormous in bending China foreign policy to Israel's advantage while waving (a fond?) zai jian (goodbye) to the US . Think of the Israel China relationship as the ultimate combination of brains and brawn. Mental exercise: Remember Mad Max Thunder Dome? Think of the Master Blaster character without the arrogance. Any questions?

If Abbas goes to the UN for Unilateral Statehood (Part II)

By Tuvia Brodie

In yesterday's blog post, we learned several lessons:

1. It is normal to freeze when threatened. Don’t worry about it.

2. Like that deer on the highway, if you stay frozen too long, you lose.

3. Like your refusenik child, Israel does not have the luxury of saying, ‘no.’ The

political cost will be too high. Besides, it’s too early for Israel to do that.

4. In conflict, it is not good when someone else tells you what your options are.

5. In conflict, when faced with bad options, change the options.

6. A winner always controls the choices. A loser does not.

7. Finally, always choose the option that gives you the most second choices.

Here is what these lessons teach us.

Israel should be proactive at the UN and in the public arena. Remaining silent in the face of an Arab political attack at the UN is a form of turning the other cheek; and as Jews know from history, the Jew who turns the other cheek gets slapped twice. We cannot afford that. To wait is to lose. The deer that hesitates gets hit by the car. Israel has to declare repeatedly and often—privately and/or in public-- that any unilateral action by Abbas is a complete and absolute abrogation of all UN agreements ever undertaken between Arab and Jew. It has been agreed repeatedly that all decisions in the Arab-Israel conflict are to be resolved by mutual consent—this has been the mantra since 1948, and it is the foundation of the "beloved" (horrible) Oslo Accords. This understanding has been the one reality both Arab and Jewhave always agreed to. But now, if Abbas unilaterally abrogates this understanding, he is not only setting back future negotiations, he is also rejecting 63 years of agreements, and destroying forever the (horrible) Oslo Accords that everyone loves. If Abbas does this, Israel can no longer trust anything he says (Ed. note: surprise!!). Abbas is, in essence, slamming the door. He therefore—no matter what he says—must now accept full and sole responsibility for breaking all peace-building agreements that have been previously made. Israel should warn that the PA misleads when it declares—as it did this past week—that a unilaterally declared state will aid peace negotiations. It will not. Instead, it will destroy 63 years of working (sometimes painfully) towards consensus. Abbas has a choice, Israel must say, and every choice has a consequence: if Abbas acts to break every historical agreement made between Arab and Jew, then Israel will not remain silent. At the very moment that the first country name is called out at the UN, to begin that final vote for ‘recommending’ a Palestine state—a General Assembly vote is not legally binding, which means that Abbas is throwing everything away for a piece of paper-- Israel will annex the entire West Bank and Golan area, andcreate by fiat two Arab cantons. These cantons will be built like their Swiss paradigms. Each of these two cantons will be subject to Israel sovereign rule, but will otherwise be independent, just like their Swiss counterparts. Eachcanton will have its own police force, government, and courts. Each canton will be responsible for its own health care, public education, welfare, economies and tax collection. There will be no more than two such Arab cantons, and each canton will have one elected seat in the Israel Knesset. Each canton will negotiate with Israel its own agreements, subject to mutual acceptance. Arabs who live in the West Bank and Golan but outside canton boundaries will be members of the closest canton, but subject to IDF rules, since they will be living on Jewish land as undocumented aliens. Such residents, however, will have representation through the officials elected by their canton and receive from their assigned canton all benefits canton residents are entitled to.

If anyone complains about this, and calls Israel apartheid, then Israel’s response should be immediate and firm: if Switzerland is not an apartheid state, then Israel is not an apartheid state. It does not matter that Switzerland and Israel do not use the canton structure in the same way— Switzerland does not live with Israel’s political realities. This arrangement is better than the pre-vote status quo. If UN nations want Israel to look favourably upon a Palestinian state, they would do well to back off accusing Israel with emotionally charged accusations which contribute nothing constructive to the dialogue. Such accusations do not show goodwill. Israel wishes to conform to UN ideals, but Israel firmly asserts that it is against the most basic of UN ideals to demand that a sovereign member state give up land to a terrorist organization (Hamas-Fatah) dedicated to destroying that sovereign state. For Israel to cede land under these circumstances is absolutely contrary to paragraph one of Article one, Chapter one—the very beginning-- of the UN Charter; and the UN has no right to abrogate its founding document in order to act with prejudice against a member state.

There’s more to this, of course, but this is a starting point. Such an action at this time could give Israel more options after a UN vote, not less. More important, it makes Israel an actor in this play, not a passive observer. In this drama, the passive one will be the victim. Of that, there is no question. Only actors will have a chance to win. Therefore, Israel must act—and she must do so now, before September.

If Abbas goes to the UN for Unilateral Statehood (Part I)

By Tuvia Brodie

During July 2011—and now again in August—news reports in Israel have been telling us that Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), is fully committed to seeking statehood through the United Nations—or, maybe not. In the meantime, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after telling US President Obama that Israel will never negotiate a peace with the PA based on a pre-condition of pre-1967 borders, now says he will begin with exactly that pre-condition—or, maybe not. On one level, all of this illustrates regional diplomacy at its Middle East ‘best’; but on another level, it reveals a truth about how Israel reacts to Arab pressure.

Let's look at that truth and explore what that truth teaches us about Israel’s options.

Israelis today seem to talk about two things. Polls show that we are divided over the creation of a new Arab ‘Palestine’; and second, we are concerned about Arab hatred towards Jews and Israel. As a result, our national reaction to the yes-no dance of regional diplomacy we read about is perfectly natural: we freeze.

The biological response to a threat is to stop, just as a deer freezes when caught by the glare of your car’s headlights on a dark road. So, too, this has been our national response to the threat of a Mahmoud Abbas celebrating a victory by holding up a plaster map showing a new Arab Palestine in place of our Israel—something he has already done. It is important to recognize that this ‘freeze’ response is normal because if we believe that it is abnormal, we will begin to make our decisions based on an error; and when you are threatened and under pressure, the last thing you want to do is to make decisions based on an erroneous assumption. You may not get a second chance. That first mistake—thinking that freezing is bad—could be the last mistake we make because it could lead us to act impulsively, and impulse decisions made under pressure do not usually create a positive outcome. In the current diplomatic situation we are staring at, bad decision-making could be disastrous.

The natural response mechanism to a threat is simple. You freeze, and then you go to some variation of ‘flight and fight’. If you want to see this in action, the next time you see two of Israel’s ubiquitous street cats facing off, watch how they behave. They spend a lot of time (noisily) freezing, then—mostly—they flee. Their worst-case scenario is, they fight. That deer caught on the road in your headlights also freezes, but unlike those street cats, it does not stay frozen long. It has to make a decision. Its options are limited: stand its ground and confront your 1200-kilo car approaching at perhaps 80 kph; attack your car; or jump off the road. It has less than 3 seconds to make its decision; then, its options collapse to zero. You hit the deer.

The same is true for us. Under threat, we are caught ‘in the headlights’, frozen. Like that deer, we hesitate. Like that deer, our options are limited: we can attack by annexing the West Bank and Golan; we can say, ‘no’ (or remain passive) and wait to confront the consequences of a UN vote for a new state; or, we can surrender immediately and sign whatever Abbas puts in front of us. There are other options, of course, but our choices are definitely limited.

Unfortunately, our nation is, ultimately, not like that deer in the headlights. The option of jumping off to the side is not open to us. There is no place to jump. Israelis know this—and that is why, perhaps, we remain frozen: the best choice is closed. There is no safe haven. Since whatever decision we make seems likely to lead to something unpleasant, we remain frozen.

But even if we lack a safe haven, there is still good news for us: we do have options. Our problem has never been a lack of options. Our problem is, we do not like the options we have. We want different options.

This is not a thought-process that leads to success. Instead, it is a thought-process every parent of a 4-year old has seen. Did you ever see a 4-year old decide he does not want to get dressed on the morning that you are rushed and under pressure? What does a smart parent do in this situation? You change the subject, and you talk about choices: ‘look, do you want the red socks this morning, or the blue?’ This works—except on that one morning when your child decides he does not like the options and you know what happens next, right? Your personal family version of World War III.

Well, our nation is exactly like that child: red socks, blue socks; sign Abbas’ paper, wait for the UN, and neither one of us likes the options.

(Tomorrow: Lessons learned and a plan)

Torah: Blueprint for Wisdom and Success

By Moshe Feiglin

And you shall observe them and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples, that, when they hear all these statutes, shall say: 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' (From this week's Torah portion, Va'etchanan, Deuteronomy 4:6)

When they came to establish a nation on the foundation of liberty, America's founding fathers turned to the Bible. The Biblical principles that they adopted were the secret of America's success. The downgrade of the US credit rating parallels the downgrading of those principles.

The depth of the Divine wisdom concealed within the ancient words of the Torah is well known to the nations. They are fully aware that the authentic application of that wisdom is exclusively in the hands of the Nation of Israel. It is Israel that testifies to the existence of G-d and it is Israel's responsibility to actualize His message of liberty and prosperity for all humanity.


Shabbat Shalom

Rav Nachman Kahana on Parashat Ve’etchanan 5771

BS"D Parashat Ve’etchanan 5771

The continuous flow of world history with its myriad episodes, can be likened to a motion picture consisting of innumerous individual frames. But, unlike a motion picture where thousand of frames pass through the viewer’s eyes on their way to his cognizant self; in HaShem’s technicolor extravaganza with a cast of billions, the 120 years of a human life is confined to only one frame.

In this week’s parasha, we are witness to a major frame change. The frame depicting Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen’s leadership slowly glides into the frame where Yehoshua Bin Nun will be the next nation’s political and military leader, and Aharon’s son Elazar the Kohen Ha’Gadol (High Priest).

If one were to view a movie for a single minute, he would be hard pressed to understand the plot unfurling before his eyes. Ever more so regarding us, mere mortals, whose lives on the background of HaShem’s master plan, exist no longer than the time it takes for a lightning bolt to illuminate the night sky.

In an attempt to create a semblance of order and understanding in our seemingly chaotic existence, our rabbis divided the frames of human history into three stages, as the Gemara (Sanhedrin 97a) states:

ששת אלפים שנה הוי עלמא, שני אלפים תוהו, שני אלפים תורה, שני אלפים ימות המשיח

The world will exist for 6000 years: 2000 of chaos, 2000 of Torah and 2000 the period of Mashiach

"Chaos, Torah and Mashiach":

1- ‘Chaos’ refers to the development of civilizations prior to the time the Torah was revealed to the Jewish nation and from us to the world.

2- The period of ‘Torah’ refers to when Jewish influence began taking hold in the world, as in the matter of a seven-day week, the concepts of morality, human dignity and the rule of law.

3- The Period of Mashiach, when human beings will cease experimenting with weird religious, political, economic and social lifestyles. And after failing in them all, they will draw the inevitable conclusion that life without the centrality of the God of Yisrael will always end in an unavoidable, inhumane impasse.

I see another attempt to departmentalize human history in the much underrated lyric poem we recite after the weekday Shacharit and Shabbat Musaf prayers:

אין כא-לוהינו, אין כאדוננו, אין כמלכנו אין כמושיענו

There is none like our God (Elokainu), there is none like our master, there is none like our king, there is none like our Savior

The poem separates human existence into four periods:

1- Of the many names of HaShem - ‘Elokim’ - is used in the first verse of the Torah: "In the beginning Elokim created the heavens and the earth".

The period of Elokainu’ was a chaotic one that witnessed the expulsion of humanity from Gan Eden, the first incident of fratricide, the deluge, the dispersion of peoples from Bavel to all parts of the globe; and the first international war, starvation, slavery and more.

It was a time when HaShem was forgotten and replaced with all sorts of idolatry.

2- This was followed by the period of Adonainu (our Master), that began with Avraham Avienu, as the Gemara states (Brachot 7b):

אמר רבי יוחנן משום רבי שמעון בן יוחי: מיום שברא הקדוש ברוך הוא את העולם לא היה אדם שקראו להקדוש ברוך הוא אדון, עד שבא אברהם וקראו אדון

Rabbi Yochanan quotes Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai: From the day that Hashem created the world no man called Him Adon (Master, meaning Creator who keeps constant watch over His creations).

3- The period of ‘Malkeinu’ (our King) as defined by the actions and leadership of the Davidic monarchy in Yerushalayim and based on HaShem’s Torah and prophecies, intended to mirror the absolute majesty of HaShem’s kingship over the world, as stated in Tehilim (Psalms 103:19)

ה' בשמים הכין כסאו ומלכותו בכל משלה

God has established His throne in heaven, and His monarchy is supreme

4- The final period of ‘Moshianu’ (our Salvior) is the one we have been experiencing in the last 2000 years of our exile. And HaShem’s miraculous restoration of His people - Yisrael - to our status of God’s "Chosen People" through the initial stage of Medinat Yisrael.

As we witness current events, I would suggest dividing the last three centuries as follows:

1- The 19th century was conspicuous as the century of colonization of the "primitive natives" by the Western Christian powers in the spirit of the poem entitled "White man’s burden," by Rudyard Kipling in 1899.

2- The 20th century was the century of unspeakable atrocities, when more people were murdered than the combined number of all the victims throughout the history of the world.

3- The 21st century in which we are living today, and I believe will be called in future history books "The Payback Century". Because we will see Christian Europe slowly and painfully descending into the abyss of poverty and chaos. The great history books in shamayim are recording every murderous act perpetrated against the Jewish people from the Iberian Peninsula to the Ural mountains.

Perfidious England will stand before the heavenly court whose prosecutors will be the ten martyred Jews of Eretz Yisrael:

Shlomo ben Yosef, Dov Gruner, Mordechai Alkachi, Yechiel Drezner, Eliezer Kashani, Yaakov Weiss, Avshalom Chabiv, Meir Nakari, Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani - who were hanged in Jerusalem and Acco and murdered by the British in other ways in the years leading up to the Medina.

The prosecution will be accompanied by all the Jews who were refused entrance to Eretz Yisrael by His Majesty’s Royal Navy beginning in 1939, and were returned to Europe or drowned at sea.

England, which is now witnessing uncontrollable riots in their cities, is not a "junior partner" of the German Reich when it came to the destruction of European Jewry.

Germany, Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Russia and indeed all Europe will follow suit - each in its time and in the way that will be decided by HaShem.

Last week, I suggested that it was Hashem’s "measure for a measure" that caused the bottom of the American economy to drop out on the background of housing, with their defaulted mortgages, derivatives and sub-derivatives, etc., brought about by the current American President, as well as past presidents, who have forced the Israeli government to refrain from building in our Eretz Yisrael. So America’s Achilles heel will be housing.

But the list of America’s sins towards the Jewish does not end with preventing Sarah from adding another lavatory in her ever increasing kindergarten in Ariel.

What awaits Germany and the other European descendants of Aisav I leave to others, because there are limits to my imagination of what Gehinom is.

Indeed, the caption I would put on this 21st century is "The century of God’s measure for measure".

I am informed that many Jews living in London, Manchester and other places in England are beginning to ponder two words which were "bloody" heretical until yesterday - Eretz Yisrael!!

The same will soon be true of Jews in other lands as they become affected by the credit downgrading of the USA to AA+ and soon to reach AA level.

When the time arrives for retribution for the evils perpetrated to His nation Yisrael, HaShem will wait for no man.

The world is shaking, and no one can foretell what the next hour might bring.

In these unprecedented circumstances, the wise man, blessed with the will to live, will know that there is refuge in Zion.

Shabbat Shalom

Nachman Kahana

Copyright © 5771-2011 Nachman Kahana

Equality, Liberty and Jewish Economics

By Moshe Feiglin

The State of Israel is up in arms and everyone is protesting: Doctors, anarchists, homeless, renters who would like to be home-owners, parents, teachers, taxi drivers and more. Some of the protests are real, some are fake, some are authentic, while others hide a different agenda behind their protest signs. It's a mixed and very confusing bag of events that has broken out in our summer heat and it is rocking our government.

It is difficult to sort out what is true and what is false. On the one hand, we all feel economic pressure. Whoever is getting married and looking for a place to live or whose children are doing so knows that this is an impossible situation. More than 120 average salaries are required to buy a reasonable apartment within a reasonable driving distance from Israel's center, where most jobs are located. Our parents in the 1950's and 60's needed only half this sum to buy a home that they could call their own. Then, they worked eight hours a day, came home when the children were still awake and managed to cover their expenses with their salaries.

Today? Who works only eight hours? And who manages to save even one shekel by the end of the month? A family of seven that eats only the very simplest of food cannot get by without a food bill of thousands of shekels, to which they must add their expenses for tuition, transportation, housing etc.

There is no doubt about it; the pressure is real.

On the other hand, Israel's economy is flourishing, and we all feel it. All of us - not only the wealthy. The cafés are packed to the brim. Tens of thousands of Israelis are vacationing this summer overseas. New cars are jamming our highways.

How can we explain this dissonance? Let us begin to peel off the layers of the onion.

First of all, we will remove the first layer; the layer of the protest "leaders". It is actually quite easy to understand what is happening at the protest camps. Someone in the most radical Left understood that they have no chance to win a direct ideological debate with the Right. So they chose a more sophisticated tactic and wrapped their political/ideological agenda around genuine distress, channeling it to undermine the government.

Financial backing from Israel's enemies through the good offices of the New Israel Fund together with generous aid from Israel's media came together to create a huge gust in the sails of the anarchists who suddenly sprang up as authentic street leaders. At first, they enjoyed public approval, but after a few days, when the leaders of the struggle were pressed to logically formulate their demands, they were revealed in all their delinquency and the public got the picture.

So now we are left with the real issue minus the smokescreen. Are things good? Or are they bad? Israel's economy is excellent, no question about it. Technically, its citizens should be in a reasonable economic state. But the unease is genuine.

There are islands of lack of competition that have raised prices of certain commodities. The housing shortage is the result of the almost complete monopoly that the State enjoys, holding 93% of the land in the country. Another factor is the building freeze in Judea and Samaria. An amazing fact that has not been getting much publicity is that most of the land marketed in Israel comes from the 7% that is in private hands. In other words, the State has a built-in interest not to market its land, and to profit from the rise in land prices. The main share of the price of a new apartment is the price of the land. In this way, home-owning hopefuls have become a golden goose for Israel's Treasury. The high cost of food is also the result of hidden monopolies. Paving the way for more imports will lower the prices in no time.

That being said, the root of the distress and the protest is much deeper. In order to relieve the distress, we must enlist standards that are much different than the economic standards with which we are familiar today.

The first standard that we must enlist is the equality index.

Our Sages teach us that if a wealthy person is accustomed to servants who run before his carriage, the greater community must supply him with this level of comfort even if he has lost his wealth. This is the level of loving kindness that we must provide for him.

In other words, there are objective and subjective standards. In other times, nobody would complain about the economic conditions that we are experiencing today. But today, the model for comparison is not a tent in a refugee town, but rather a villa with all the modern comforts to which we have been accustomed. The lack of equality between those who can afford that standard of living and those who cannot creates hard feelings that turn into public protests.

The hard feelings are intensified by the ever-increasing salary gap. It is one thing to live on 5,000 shekels a month. But to live on that salary when others in society are paid ten times that amount - is something else altogether.

Another standard that we will have to enlist to understand the distress is the liberty index. When a person works 14 hours a day and never knows how long he will be kept on the payroll, it doesn't make much difference how much he earns. One way or another, he no longer enjoys liberty. He has become a modern slave.

These two standards; equality and liberty, are really in our own hands. We decide which societal model we would like to emulate. We also decide how much of our liberty we are willing to forgo in order to enjoy the standard of living that we have decided to emulate. To put it simply, the 'social uprising' is really against ourselves.

But it is not that simple. Man is a social animal. Very few people are capable of living with independent standards in a society that holds other standards dear.

The problem, then, is social or on a deeper level, ideological. The State of Israel was founded on the coattails of socialism and until the middle of the 1980's was mired in its culture of robbery. Israel's citizens would hide their wealth (a.k.a. "the under the floor tile savings plan") and would be embarrassed by their economic success. The work culture was based on lethargy; one's connections to officialdom were much more important than entrepreneurship, industriousness and education. The national debt, inflation, unemployment, gross national product and every other index responded in kind. Israel was a state on crutches.

The fall of the Communist bloc raised the banner of free-market capitalism and sent a vast human treasure of industrious and educated new citizens into Israel. High-tech, well-suited to Jewish genius and the problem of marketing Israeli end-products in the world was the perfect solution and Israel has become a true high-tech superpower.

But this was the beginning of the downfall that has led to the social uprising that we are now experiencing. Our newfound wealth has no support system in Israeli culture; no deep tradition of faith and loving kindness that could refine, restrain and above all - give direction and a goal for all the energies bursting forth.

When a nation has no national vision, it begins to fray. With no clear cultural roadmap, the economic turnabout brought about a turnabout in social norms. The concealment of wealth from the exploitation of the socialist establishment was a bad situation, but it did create fertile ground for values like modest-living and making do with very little. The surge of the pendulum to the free market also trampled those positive elements. The free market Israeli capitalism unleashed a culture of competitive ostentatiousness. People began to spend more money than they could really afford. If in the past, Israelis were embarrassed by what they could afford, today they take pride in their acquisitions - even though they cannot afford them.

Israeli society has become captive to a culture that, behind the smokescreen of freedom, negates our liberty. It is easy to be confused by the two terms. But in their essence, they are mutually exclusive. Liberty means taking responsibility, while freedom means absolving oneself of responsibility. The culture that developed with the new capitalism included a highly visible element of voracious freedom; a dimension of "grab what you can and don't be responsible for anything but yourself - if anything at all."

The culture of freedom that relinquishes responsibility and by default, liberty, has led us to a serious deterioration of human rights. We prefer to get more and more freedom in exchange for ever greater sacrifices of our liberty. We prefer to cast our basic responsibilities on the State. "Let the State take responsibility for our children," one of the leaders of the parent's protest said last week.

Police brutality toward demonstrators has intensified and become more violent. Policemen in masks - a blatant characteristic of totalitarian regimes previously unseen here, black uniforms, policemen who are no longer policemen but rather, fighters are now a common sight: Who exactly is their enemy?

Wholesale eavesdropping on citizens has become routine. The biometric law that labels citizens as if they were cattle has passed its first reading in the Knesset. Why does it matter? After all, with all our modern technology that has brought us so much freedom to talk, text and to be in contact from anywhere to anywhere - we are all transparent anyway. Who will dare relinquish all of this freedom in exchange for an undefined piece of liberty?

Liberty is quite evasive. It is easy to lose it without even noticing. Then, in the protest tents, they can't figure out how to formulate a list of demands because they do not understand the root of their distress. They do not know what they want, because a person wants to live and there is no life without liberty.

Paradoxically, we are experiencing quite a lot of aspects of Orwell's 1984 - from within a capitalistic regime. Even Orwell couldn't have come up with that: cultural tyranny without a tyrant; the loss of liberty from the midst of wealth and economic growth as a cultural process that has no address other than us.

When a family goes out for the evening to the shopping mall, they are actually designating consumerism as their culture. It is not unusual to spot couples with small children strolling through the malls at ten o' clock at night. That is the only time that they have to spend with their children after a work day much longer than eight hours. Now they are going to spend the money that they earned at the price of their liberty, exchanging it for more material success that the culture of consumerism forces upon them. Do they enjoy liberty? Or are they slaves?

Do not be mistaken. The tycoon who owns the mall is drowning in the very same swamp. He has not worked any less than the butterflies that have been captured in the net that he suspended between his dazzling storefronts. He is also caught up in unrelenting, impossible competition and is captive to the method and the culture no less than the smallest of his consumers.

Now we must return the baby that we threw out with the polluted Socialist bathwater back into the tub.

Socialism is a sophisticated form of robbery. If it is fine to rob the wealthy because he has wealth, then once the moral dam is broken, the immorality will not stop with a particular person. In no time, the rich layer of society is erased and the same method is applied to the next layer. Before you know it, it also reaches you. And you thought that you would be able to enjoy the spoils.

When the method reaches the back lines, it begins to take much more than money. Because if a person thinks that it is fine to take another person's money, he will ultimately allow himself to take his life. Property rights are not a luxury - they define us as humans; they are one of the foundations that make a person, whom it is prohibited to slaughter, more than an animal, which we are allowed to slaughter. All the absolute socialist regimes eventually perpetrated mass murder of their own nation. Liberty is the foundation of human life. Loss of liberty precedes its loss.

There is no economic method other than free economy. The problem is not with free economy, but rather with the culture that encases it. It is not capitalism that negated our liberty, but rather the hedonistic culture that came with it.

Solidarity, loving kindness, modesty, personal example, respect for others, education: How will we establish a culture that highlights all of these while restraining, refining and directing the wealth that has become our lot?

We have no culture other than our Jewish culture. Israel's economic system must be a triangle: its base is capitalistic liberty and its sides are Jewish faith and loving kindness. There, in the triangle, we can find the answer to the distress that has bubbled over the surface in Israel this summer.

Netanyahu’s Big Gamble

By Tuvia Brodie

Five weeks ago, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be facing two bad diplomatic choices: yield to US pressure to accept pre-1967 borders as a starting point for ‘peace’ negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), or say no to this proposal—and face a threat that a displeased US President might refuse to veto an upcoming PA statehood initiative in the UN, thereby leaving Israel naked and exposed. In a sense, he appeared damned if did and damned if he didn’t.

But as of August 3, 2011, we see that Mr Netanyahu has created for himself a third choice: he has told the US that he will accept the pre-1967 borders as a negotiation starting point but he also requires concessions from the PA—they must accept Israel as a Jewish state, and they must accept that the final result of negotiations will be two states for two peoples.

It’s a high-risk strategy. It could backfire, for if Abbas accepts these conditions, Netanyahu’s government could fall, leaving Israel in turmoil at the very moment it needs to stand united and strong. But, paradoxically, it might also be his best option, for two reasons: first, national leaders do not change stripes at times of high stress. Instead, they fall back on known paradigms, known behaviour patterns: Netanyahu has always sought to appease the US, and he will do so now; he will not change his comfort zone just as he faces what could be his greatest challenge.

The second reason he will not change his behaviour could be more important: he may not be the same Prime Minister we saw before his May trip to the US. There is reason to believe that he has found his (Likud) compass even as he gambles with the family jewels. Indeed, he may be gambling precisely because he has found his compass.

To understand this possibility, recall the events of February and March, 2011. When the US cast its first UN veto ever (for Israel) in February—to kill the ‘settlements are illegal’ resolution—it is my opinion that the US President became extraordinarily angry. He showed that anger to a number of American Jewish leaders in a March White House meeting—an anger which was reported to have stunned some of those present—and I believe that he also treated our Prime Minister, privately, to an equally extraordinary tongue-lashing that was so severe, so uniquely hostile and so brutal that Mr Netanyahu was left not just stunned, but frightened.

We saw it. Look at Mr Netanyahu’s decisions, statements and actions in early March, 2011—right after interactions with Mr Obama: he presided over a meeting to destroy selected West Bank outposts; after Jewish homes at Gilad Farm were destroyed, he spoke with uncharacteristically harsh criticism of Jewish ‘nationalists’; he successfully pressured Likud MKs to vote against a Knesset effort to remove Ehud Barak’s control over Judea and Samaria (so that settlement construction decisions would be taken away from Barak); and he saw to it that Jewish building plans for East Jerusalem were cancelled. All of this happened in the same ten-day period in early March, and together indicate that he had reacted to the President’s anger in a manner that suggested that, if aggressively bullied, he would indeed acquiesce to US pressure.

People sometime say that ‘adversity builds character’, but that is not true: adversity does not build character; it reveals character—and I believe that, in the three months following that US veto, Mr Netanyahu struggled to find his ‘character’: would he remain frightened and bullied, and cave in to a hostile United States, or would he fight back (as a true Likud-nik)?

At first, he hesitated. He revealed nothing. During the first two weeks of March, there were public moments when he seemed cowed. Then, nine weeks later, after being told by Washington that there would be no new ground broken during his May 2011 visit, the PM was informed—as he reportedly boarded his plane-- that US President Obama was about to ambush him with an unscheduled speech at the US State Department, to announce a plan to tell Israel to go back to pre-1967 borders before negotiations even began.

Our PM had been bullied in February and March; now, in May, he was being ambushed.

Suddenly, this challenge— the bullying capped by this ambush—became more than just another diplomatic problem for Mr. Netanyahu. It was something much more personal. It was an absolute test of character, the type of test that might happen only once or twice in a man’s lifetime, and his response could strip him naked in public as he faced the prospect of being forced to reveal his most private, intimate inner self while on foreign soil, on someone else’s turf.

Who was he--Pillsbury doughboy or the Leader of a proud but beleaguered Jewish people? He had to decide; he could hesitate no longer. When his plane landed in Washington no one could predict how he would respond to this challenge; but then, when he spoke to Obama in the Oval Office, we saw his decision: at that moment, in that august Office, in front of the most powerful man in the world, on another man’s territory, Mr Netanyahu revealed his character: he is not the Pillsbury doughboy. He is not someone you can permanently frighten or bully. In fact, he is a fighter.

At that moment, in front of rolling cameras, he fought back. And we cheered.

Mr Obama, however, did not cheer; and he did not take ‘no’ for an answer. By July, he restated his determination: Israel must start negotiations accepting pre-1967 borders.

My bet is, we saw the real Netanyahu in Washington this past May. Yes, he looks like the Pillsbury doughboy. Yes, he will appease a hostile American President. He will give you what you want—exactly as he is doing now with Mr. Obama’s demands. But beneath that façade is a tough Israeli politician—a fighter who, perhaps for reasons known only to himself, is reluctant to show his fists.

With his most recent announcement---that he will accept pre-1967 borders—Mr Netanyahu also reveals himself to be a man who will gamble with our most precious inheritance—our land. He will gamble everything and, gambling, present to the world his Pillsbury doughboy facade. He offers major concessions to the PA. Painfully, he says he will make difficult concessions for peace. But he also requires something from the PA. His concessions will not be one-sided. He wants something in return; and he gambles with his concessions because he calculates that the PA will break. The PA will, he believes, reject his concessions. He believes that his gamble is a good one because I think he truly believes that the PA can not, will not and will never publicly accept Israel as a Jewish state; I think he believes that the PA will break because of this singular point, and Israel will therefore win this gamble. Also, with this gamble, Israel can show the world it is willing to make ‘painful’ choices at the same time it shows the world that it is the Arab who refuses to negotiate.

His gamble is, he can offer our land because the PA will refuse the offer. They will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. They will spit on peace. In addition, we already know that Israeli officials are visiting UN member states to tell the Israel story, and I think this is the second part of his strategy: while the ‘gamble’ gets played out in public, Israel will look for friends within the UN community –and within the US Congress--to help it do an ‘end-around’, so that if US and/or UN leadership gives Israel the cold shoulder, she can call on her friends to steer a course in her favour.

His gamble is, Israel’s new friends will rally around her because she has finally done exactly what they want—offer land. Therefore, he can now say to them, ’I give to you; now you give to me.’ Of course, if Mr. Netanyahu is wrong, he could lose everything. If he is right, his win could look miraculous because he will literally snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The key here is what Benjamin Netanyahu believes. Yes, he believes in himself and he believes in Israel. I am sure that he believes he can do this. But in the weeks ahead, he may face an epic battle against Pharaoh-like pressure from a US President who approaches Israel with a hardened anger and an iron anti-Israel bias.

If Mr Netanyahu aims to withstand that pressure, if he is to have any chance to win his gamble, he would be wise to think about what, deep down, he truly believes. Mr Netanyahu, do you own a kippa (yarmulke) and a siddur (prayer book)? If so, it might not be a bad idea to keep your eyes focused heavenward and those who believe in faith-based leadership (Moshe Feiglin et al) on speed-dial.

Judge Righteously

By Moshe Feiglin

And I charged your judges at that time, saying: 'Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. (From this week's Torah portion, Devarim, Deuteronomy 1:16)

Judge righteously. Why does the Torah specify the difference between brethren and the stranger that is with him? Does the Torah direct us to judge Jews differently than non-Jews?

The answer is that justice, which is actually the application of truth, cannot be realized through falsehood. Family standards are different than standards outside the family. The world was created through separation. If we erase our separate identity and pretend to relate to all people as equal - in every place and in every situation - we lose our connection to reality and our ability to judge righteously.

Jews do not have completely equal rights outside their Land. They do not have the right of national self-definition in the US, and they should not have it. The opposite is true, as well. Israel's High Court, motivated by leftist ideology that encourages the removal of separations and the loss of identities will necessarily lead us to the loss of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. The High Court decision this week to destroy Migron is a perfect case in point.

Shabbat Shalom

Rav Nachman Kahana on Parashat Devarim 5771

BS"D Parashat Devarim 5771

A:

As a responsible Rav, leader and father figure, it was Moshe’s responsibility to shower praise on the nation for the good they did, and to reprimand and reproach them when they strayed from the Torah’s directives.

The overriding theme of this week’s parasha is Moshe’s balanced and tempered admonishment of the nation, delivered at the onset of his farewell address to the people he had transformed into the greatest nation on earth.

"Balanced and tempered," because the severity of many of the nation’s actions during their forty-year trek in the desert deserved harsh reprimands, not just the "light" allusions and innuendos that Moshe voiced.

But if Moshe Rabbeinu would be with us today, I am quite sure that even his boundless composure and perseverance would be taxed by our government’s faltering, fumbling hesitancy and indecisiveness in the matter of settling the West Bank. I use the term "West Bank" to refer to the whole western side of the Jordan River up to the Mediterranean Sea, because it is the twin of the Jewish "East Bank" occupied today by the Saudi Arabian Bedouin House of Abdallah, by invitation of the British mandatory authorities who gave away what was not theirs.

Why do I suggest that Moshe Rabbeinu would be the most upset?

Recall, in the Book of Shemot, when Yitro and his daughter Tzippora - Moshe’s wife - and their two sons left Midian to join with Moshe in the desert. Parashat Yitro relates that Yitro became very aroused and agitated when Moshe related the many incidents when HaShem saved the Jewish people prior to anf after their leaving Egypt. Our rabbis explain that since Yitro was part of Paro’s inner circle, he was privy to State secrets, including Paro’s "final solution" of the Jewish problem. At Moshe’s mention of a miracle, Yitro related it to a particular decision made by Paro against the Jewish people. After going through the long list of parallel miracles and diabolical Egyptian plans, it was plain to see how the hand of God was at work for the Jewish people. That lesson was not lost on Moshe, nor on any of the God fearing people within the Jewish nation.

So what would Moshe, who knew so well HaShem’s principle of "mida ke’neged mida" (a measure for a measure), be telling us today?

In 2008, the United States underwent an economic crisis that continues to this day - with no respite in sight. The economic indicators of unemployment, GNP, available credit, the trade deficit and national debt are depressing. Just this week, Congress was forced to raise the national debt limit by another 2.1 trillion (a trillion has 12 zeros) permitting the US government to owe $16,000,000,000,000 and change, and there is no end to the numbers. To make this a bit more meaningful, for every dollar spent by the US government, 42 cents of it is borrowed money.

Today, Moshe would have a simple message for the American government and people. He would point out that the bottom dropped out of the American economy on the background of housing, with their defaulted mortgages, derivatives and sub derivatives, etc.

This was Hashem’s "measure for a measure". This American President, as well as past presidents, warned the Governments of Israel to refrain from building in our Eretz Yisrael.

To this end, the American consulate in Jerusalem daily sends out its cars and helicopters to make certain that Sarah did not add another toilet to her kindergarten in Yitzhar or that a caravan was not placed on a forsaken hillside near Kedumim.

The God of Israel has declared that for every unbuilt home in our West Bank, 50 American banks will close in their WEST. For every young couple who wishes to make their life in the hilltops of the Shomron but cannot do so because the US government deems Jewish building there to be illegal, there will be 10,000 unemployed couples in the United States.

Moshe’s advice to the American people would be: "Do not just permit our fearful government to build in the West Bank. Force them to do so for your own good. Send your contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan to build the roads and infrastructure all over the Holy Land for the resettling of the Jewish people in their Biblical land. If you will do so, the God of Israel will open the floodgates of prosperity for your people. But if you continue to choke them , there will always be salvation for them from another source; but the United States will never recover."

This is the message Moshe Rabbeinu would deliver to the United States and to the world in general. The world must wake up to the basic fact of history: never has a nation, exiled from its land, returned to their ancient homeland after many generations, as we the Jewish nation have done.

Here is the not-so-invisible hand of HaShem in history.

B:

What’s in a name?

If your parents named you Abe or Zachary, Abigail or Zlota there really isn’t too much to your name. But if they named you Avraham, Zacharia, Aviga’yil or Zahava then they were recipients of a "minor prophecy" - as stated in certain Jewish mystical works - that a Hebrew name mirrors the root of a child’s neshama (soul).

Moshe Rabbeinu was entrusted by Hashem to complete two missions in his life: 1- To raise up the downtrodden, enslaved and loosely-connected children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov to become the most exalted nation on earth and 2- To serve as HaShem’s ambassador in delivering His Holy Torah to Am Yisrael - the spiritual heirs of the world’s greatest spiritual leaders Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov. And it would forever be its task to bring honor to the Creator of Heaven and Earth in the performance of His Holy Torah.

To this end, HaShem who knows all, created the circumstances whereby Moshe’s father was named Amram and his mother Yocheved.

Amram is comprised of the two words ‘AM’ meaning nation and ‘RAM’ meaning exalted. Yocheved comprises the two letters ‘YO’ (yud and vav in HaShem’s four letter name) and CAVOD meaning honor.

Moshe acquired his spiritual strength to create an exalted nation that would dedicate its very essence to bringing honor to HaShem from his holy parents.

As for Moshe’s name: I wrote in parashat Pinchas, Moshe was the name given to him by Batya, the Egyptian princess who saved him as a baby from the river . Moshe in ancient Egyptian means "to draw out from water". HaShem chose to call him by this name only, because it constituted the essence of Moshe’s destiny: that his mission in life would be to draw the Jewish people out from slavery, but not merit to bring them into Eretz Yisrael.

We are called Yisrael, which is the name our father Ya’akov was given when he defeated the angel of Aisav. The word means one who has fought and been victorious over men and angels.

Over the 4000-year course of Jewish history, we have fought and defeated many men, nations and empires. We have also fought and were victorious in the spiritual challenges of "gentile angels" who have forever sought to tear us away from our enduring faith in HaShem.

The founding fathers of the Medina experienced a "minor prophecy" when they named the emerging State "Medinat Yisrael".

The message HaShem was sending to them was that this ancient people was about to embark upon the greatest adventure of its 4000-year history. It would begin with the return home of millions of Jews from the four corners of our exile. We would throw off the trappings of our exile experience and and again become one people with one Torah, one language, one dedicated army - a nation with one common destiny.

We would be victorious over the men and nations that seek to curse that which Hashem has blessed. We would be victorious in the religious and ideological challenges set before us by Christianity and Islam.

Indeed! Am Yisrael will be victorious over men and angels!

This d’var Torah is dedicated to the memory of my uncle Harav Mordechai ben Harav Nachman Kahana of Tzfat zt"l, whose yahrtzeit is on the 3rd of Menachem Av. In addition to being a talmid chacham, Rav Mordechai was a paragon of midot tovot (virtuous personal conduct). He paid the price of mesirat nefesh (total dedication) for Eretz Yisrael, when his wife Tzippora a"h - my aunt, her mother and two of my cousins from another branch of the family were murdered in 1938, on their way back to Tzfat from a wedding in Haifa. When learning of the murder of their mother, two sons - Moshe and Baruch David - left their yeshiva studies to join the underground (Etzel - Irgun Ze’va’ie Le’umi) where they fought the British and Arabs until Israel’s independence in 1948.

May they all be united in bonds of eternal life.

Shabbat Shalom

Nachman Kahana

Copyright © 5771-2011 Nachman Kahana

The Housing Shortage Proposal

By Michael and Yehudah Fuah

The following is a summary of Manhigut Yehudit's proposal for a solution to the housing crisis. This proposal was written by Manhigut Yehudit Director Michael Fuah and his son, Yehudah and presented to Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz this past winter.

Approximately 93% of the land in the State of Israel is owned by the State. The Israeli government by means of the Israel Land Authority is the body that decides how much land will be marketed. Between 2005 and 2010, an average of 27,832 housing units were put on the market. Demand for housing units created by the addition of new households was approximately 44,000 units per year. This has created a shortage of available housing units.

Basic Assumptions for Solution:
The basic assumption of the writers is that the housing shortage was created because of erroneous conduct of the Israeli government. The solution is in its hands.

The writers oppose any government interference or investment in the housing market, except for aid in infrastructure construction in the periphery.

The Israeli government must afford the free market the proper conditions in which to overcome the current shortage in a reasonable amount of time, and to create conditions to prevent a further deterioration in the housing market.

Solution Parameters
Every year, Israel's government must market enough lots for construction to cover the growth in the number of expected new households for that year. The government must also market additional lots over the coming years that will reduce the existing shortage. The expected growth in new households is 50,000 per year. There is currently a shortage of between 100,000 and 120,000 housing units. With this in mind, the minimum number of housing units necessary to solve the problem is 24,000 housing units per year for five years to overcome the existing shortage, plus 50,000 units per year to keep up with expected growth for a total of 74,000 housing units per year.

Land Reserves in Israel

Negev and Galil:
In an effort to disperse the population over a wider geographical area, land in the Negev and Galil for the construction of apartment buildings will be marketed to builders at no cost on the condition that they build and sell housing within three years.

Coastal Region:
Israel's crowded coastal region suffers from a severe housing shortage. The only realistic solution to alleviate the problem is to build housing at the foot of the Judea/Samaria mountain range.

Flooding the housing market with free lots in the Negev, Galil, Judea and Samaria will allow people to buy houses that are already planned on paper at low prices almost immediately. This will release considerable pressure from the entire housing market.

The great success of Modi'in should be copied to the Neveh Tzuf region, Ariel, Karnei Shomron and Avnei Chefetz; all a 15-20 minute drive from the coast on a south-north axis. Apartment buildings should be constructed in all these areas with the appropriate infrastructure.

Jerusalem
Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and needs a unique plan. We recommend the "Greater Jerusalem Plan" proposed by the Greater Jerusalem Council.

Economic Implications:
Currently, the State of Israel profits handsomely by keeping supply of land low and marketing it at outrageous prices. This must stop immediately. Supply must significantly increase, which will in turn lower the prices to reasonable levels.

Click here for the full report in Hebrew.

A Jewish Solution to Israel's Housing Crisis

By Moshe Feiglin

Who caused Israel's housing shortage?
The Left.
That sounds demagogic, but let me explain:

The State of Israel's control of most of Israel's land is the result of ideology. Since the Second Aliyah, the Zionist movement - followed by the State of Israel - has been motivated by leftist centrist ideology. This ideology has helped to create the greatest monopoly in Israel today; the monopoly of the Israel Land Authority over almost all of Israel's land.

Ironically, the ideology that created the problem is the same ideology behind the housing protest. The solutions that it proposes will only intensify the problem because the protesters are calling for more of what caused the problem in the first place:

The two major factors that caused the crisis in the construction market are the state monopoly on land and the building freeze on Israel's most natural and logical land reserves in Judea and Samaria.

And what are the protesters calling for? Exactly the same thing: To empower the State monopoly and to flee Judea and Samaria once and for all. They want the State to build houses and to rent them. They want everything to belong to the State, which will decide who will receive housing and who will not. This state of affairs would mean that we, the people, would not have responsibility nor would we enjoy what the Torah prescribes: liberty. Liberty is very different from simple freedom. Liberty means taking responsibility.

The protesters want to empower the monopoly, but they want something else as well. The New Israel Fund that is bankrolling this display of pseudo-anarchism could not care less about the housing shortage. Its real goal is to depose the Likud and to bring about new elections that will complete the process of tearing Israel's heartland out of its borders. This will deal the final blow to any chance to really solve the housing shortage.

The Globes Newspaper website featured a short and simple film that outlined how the building freeze in Judea and Samaria was the straw that broke the camel's back of Israel's housing market. (Click here for this Hebrew film)

The film makes the following points:
First came Rabin, Peres, Beilin and Co. and gave Israel's heartland to Arafat.
The Oslo Accords halted the construction of infrastructure in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. (But in Tel Aviv they thought that this was the way to bring peace, while crushing the settlers for good measure, so why not? MF)

Despite the halt in infrastructure construction and the total elimination of new construction planning in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, construction of housing based on existing plans in the settlements continued. Construction in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, that at some points had provided Israel with more than 20% of its housing reserves, shrunk to approximately 5%.

At that point, there were still housing and construction reserves inside Israel's pre-1967 borders (and in Tel Aviv they thought that housing in tents was strictly the problem of the settlers MF). Afterwards, they decided to destroy Gush Katif, dispatching another 1,700 homeless families into the housing market. This still did not paralyze the market.

And then came the knock-out that completely blocked the housing channels and threw the entire country into a housing crisis: The building freeze in Judea and Samaria.

The protests of the young generation in Judea and Samaria who wanted to continue to live where they had grown up interested nobody in Tel Aviv. On the contrary - they were only too happy to watch the destruction of the tents and shacks that began to grow up on the hills of Samaria and Judea.

But now, when construction in Judea and Samaria provides only 0.2% of construction in Israel, the Tel Aviv young generation finds itself in tents, as well. When fellow housing protesters had the nerve to declare that the solution for the housing crisis is to build in Samaria, they beat them. All for the sake of peace, of course.

The TRUTH about the West Bank

(Ed. note: If you've been spending time off-planet and have not seen this, well, just sit back and see what is making the Arab world squirm. Kudos to Danny Ayalon.)