From Out of the Ashes: Increase and Multiply

by HaRav Eliezer Melamed
Rosh HaYeshiva, Har Bracha

The memory of the Holocaust must be leveraged for rehabilitation and progress, especially as long as the public commemorates Holocaust Day in the month of Nisan, which is not a time for grief, but of building * The Jewish people have not yet reached its numerical dimensions before the Holocaust – instead of 18 million Jews, today only a little over 14 million are known as being Jews * Therefore, as many Holocaust survivors say, in response to our murderers we must encourage birth * The education system should inform students about the physical and emotional benefits of raising a family, and teach how to establish large families despite all the challenges

The Appropriate Dates for Holocaust Remembrance
The date chosen for Yom Ha’Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the 27th of Nisan, was in opposition to the opinion of the rabbis. Nisan, the month the Jewish nation left Egypt, is a month of happiness. Therefore, the halakha was determined that for the entire month of Nisan, prayers of supplication are not recited and public fasts are not declared (S.A., O.C. 429:2). At funerals which occur during the month of Nisan eulogies are not said. Many people are custom not to visit gravesites during this month, and one who has a yahrtzeit in Nisan visits the gravesite before Rosh Chodesh. True, after Pesach some mourning customs of the Counting of the Omer are practiced, in memory of Rabbi Akiva’s students, but these days are not particularly days of sorrow or grief.

Therefore, it was apparently inappropriate to fix the painful Holocaust Remembrance Day in the month of Nisan, and as long an alternative day is not chosen, the proper time to remember the Holocaust are the days declared as fast days over the destruction of the Temple, primarily Tisha b’Av (the 9th of Av), because all of the tragedies which befell the Jewish nation since then are rooted in the destruction of the Temple and the exile of Israel from its Land. The Chief Rabbinate chose the fast day of the 10th of Tevet as the time to say Kaddish (mourner’s prayer) for those whose dates of death are unknown.

Not to withdraw from the Public who perform a Mitzvah
At the same time, it is correct not to withdraw from the general public, which on this day fulfills a great mitzvah to remember the six million Jews, elderly men and women, fathers and sons, boys and girls. This mitzvah is based on many mitzvot, including the mitzvah ‘ve’ahavta l’reacha kamocha‘ (‘you must love your neighbor as you love yourself’), which obligates every Jew to feel a sense of brotherhood towards every other Jew, and to honor those who died with a eulogy. All the more so, it is a holy mitzvah for each of us to honor and eternally commemorate our six million fellow Jews who were murdered al Kiddush Hashem (for the sanctification of God) just because they were Jews. In commemorating the six million, we also strengthen ourselves in the observance of mitzvot dealing with war, to protect Israel from its foes, for by remembering the Holocaust we will be vigilant against our enemies, just as the mitzvah of remembering Amalek is meant to encourage Israel to stand guard against its enemies.

A Day to Encourage the Expansion of the Jewish People
In any event, inspired by the days of Nisan, during which we were redeemed from Egypt, it would be appropriate to leverage Yom Ha’Shoah in the month of Nisan in the direction of rehabilitation and momentum, with emphasis on life that the kedoshim (holy Jews) commanded us, in the sense of “And when I passed by you, and saw you weltering in your blood, I said to you, ‘In your blood shall you live! Yes, I said to you, in your blood shall you live!” (Ezekiel 16:6). A day in which the mitzvah of puru u’revuru (procreation) is raised on high.

This, most likely, was the last request of the six million who were brutally tortured and murdered – that any Jew who remained alive, would do everything possible to marry, have children, and carry on the heritage, to fulfill the verse: “But the more they were oppressed, the more they proliferated and spread.” This is what the survivors living amongst us tell us, that with every grandson and granddaughter born to them, they defeat the cursed Nazis.

Yom Ha’Shoah for Generations

The issue of how to commemorate Yom Ha’Shoah has yet to be decided by the Gedolei Yisrael (eminent Rabbis) – whether to explicitly broaden the meaning of the existing fasts, so as to give more expression to the period of the Holocaust, or to set an additional and specific day of fasting to commemorate it. However, it seems that if the national emphasis on Holocaust Remembrance Day were to be on the growth of the Jewish nation and family values and the commending of families blessed with several children, even according to the spirit of halakha, it would be possible to hold this day in the month of Nisan.

The Sorrowful Numbers
We have not yet recovered. Before the Holocaust, the Jewish nation numbered eighteen million – six million of whom were murdered during the Holocaust. Today, close to 80 years after the Holocaust, we number only a little more than 14 million. During these years the world developed and flourished – many nations doubled and even tripled their numbers. But we, the Jewish people, remain wounded – both physically and spiritually.

Due to the low birth rate and severe assimilation, the number of Jews in all the Jewish communities abroad is shrinking. Only here, in the Land of Israel, are we increasing. Compared to Western countries, our growth is phenomenal. In all economically and scientifically developed countries, the number of children is low, and the number of people is decreasing; only we merit demographic growth, thanks to the deep connection to Jewish heritage and family values ​​rooted in Jewish tradition. Nevertheless, this is not enough to compensate for the terrible loss we suffered in the Holocaust. In order to strengthen the blessed process already existing in Israel, we must delve deeper into the importance of family values and the mitzvot of puru u’revuru.

The Conflict: Freedom versus Family
There are two conflicting movements in Israeli society: family values found in Jewish heritage, versus the secular outlook of the West. The widespread attitude today in academia and secular culture is that freedom, intended to allow an individual to express his unique personality, is the most important value. Family, on the other hand, is a binding, restrictive and suffocating framework. Indeed, a natural desire to establish a family still exists, but in practice, it stands in conflict with the secular cultural point of view. The values ​​of personal freedom also clash with national values, since identification with the nation, with its heritage and its challenges, is restrictive and oppressive for someone whose personal freedom to express his uniqueness is at the center of his world.

Consequently, the Israeli educational system, which is greatly influenced by secular values of freedom ​​promoted by academia, deals extensively with individual rights, tolerance, and democracy. These are important values, but as they are presented from the secular point of view, they clash with the values ​​of family and the nation. Thus, family values ​​are rarely dealt with thoroughly and systematically.

Therefore, it is important to learn and empower family values, which express the importance of love and giving as the center of one’s life. In contrast to the secular outlook which has less faith in true love involving boundless commitment, we must educate and explain that the whole person is one who breaks through his individual boundaries, loves and gives, is committed to his family, his nation, and tikkun olam (repairing the entire world). Freedom and comfort are not the purpose of life. They are important because they give a person an opportunity to choose his unique and appropriate path, but the choice must be in good values ​​expressed in establishing a family with love and loyalty, adding life and blessing to the world.

Discuss Family Issues in Educational Institutions
In the vast majority of schools, including religious institutions, unfortunately, the value of family, love, loyalty, and the mitzvah of puru u’vuru are not dealt with adequately. The challenge of raising a large family and ways of overcoming difficulties involved, are not advanced.

The secular cultural environment creates an atmosphere in which it is unpleasant to talk about such things. In this way, however, educators do an injustice to the students, depriving them of values ​​and information that are so vital to their lives.

In addition to the sacred value of establishing a family, reality also proves that the physical and mental state of married people is generally better, and they suffer less from depression and illnesses. This information should be included in material studied in high schools. Young people should be told that almost all adults who did not merit establishing a large family, in moments of sincerity, regret that they did not try harder to have another child or two. Because when a person views life in a broad, intelligent, and comprehensive way, he realizes that by and large, family is the most important objective in life.

On Holocaust Memorial Day, it would be appropriate to invite grandparents who have been privileged to establish large families to speak in schools about the difficulties and the tremendous satisfaction of having done so, and thus, commemorate the souls of the martyrs who were murdered in the Holocaust.

The Mitzvah of Puru u’Revuru

It is a Biblical obligation to procreate, and every child that parents give birth to, they fulfill a great mitzvah and merit participating with God in the birth of human being, and maintaining the entire world (Nida 31a; Mishna Sanhedrin 4:5). This is the initial purpose of Creation, for God desired the world be populated, as our Sages said: “And was not the world created for the sake of reproduction” (Mishna Gittin 4:2), as it is written “He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos” (Isaiah 45:18).

Although, without a binding definition, this great mitzvah is liable to be extremely general, to the point where in many cases it would not be implemented properly. This is because marriage is a sensitive and complex matter which depends on the understanding, feelings, hopes and consent of man and woman, and also to a certain extent, parents’ support and economic conditions.

Even after marriage, the general mitzvah leaves many doubts. On the one hand, since the birth of every child is a great mitzvah, some could argue that one child is enough – seeing as he alone is like an entire world – and postpone his birth until the parents are established and experienced. On the other hand, since the mitzvah is so immense and important, perhaps an effort should be made to have as many children as possible.

Consequently, in addition to the general idea of the mitzvah, the Torah set a basic and binding definition, and our Sages added and set more fences to give the general idea a clear and binding character.

The Extent of the Mitzvah

Our Sages determined that the mitzvah to marry is up to the age of 20, and at the latest until the age of 24, and today, l’chatchila (ideally) this is the general instruction (Peninei Halakha: Simchat HaBayit u’Birchato 5: 7-12).

There are three levels in the fulfillment of the mitzvah: 1) The Torah obligation to have a son and a daughter. Even when conditions are difficult, it is necessary to make a great effort to fulfill the obligation, including using accepted medical means, such as in vitro fertilization.

2) It is an obligatory mitzvah from Divrei Chachamim (rabbinical ordinance) to strive to have four or five children. In other words, ordinary parents who are not particularly ill, physically or mentally, are obligated to fulfill the rabbinical mitzvah to have four or five children.

3) It is a hidur mitzvah (an enhancement of the mitzvah) to have more children, according to the parents ability. In other words, for parents who know they can raise more children and instruct them in the ways of Torah, mitzvoth, and Derech Eretz, it is a mitzvah for them to continue having children according to their ability. However, if they know that with more children their burden will be too heavy, and their lives will be filled with anger and nervousness, it is preferable for them not to fulfill the hidur mitzvah, because even though with each additional child they fulfill a mitzvah, conversely, in their bad mental state they will transgress other prohibitions, and this is liable to have an adverse effect on the education of the children.

Not only that, but those who wish to turn their energies to other valuable channels, in a way that will not leave them strength to raise more children, are also entitled to do so (Peninei Halakha: Simchat HaBayit u’Birchato 5: 4-6).

Westernization of Arab demography

by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
“The fertility declines recorded in the Arab world over the past 30 years (1988-2018) have been profound, even revolutionary…The Arab world is in the midst of one of the most dramatic fertility declines in world history….From among the highest to among the lowest [fertility levels] in the world…without major economic development or strong family planning programs….” (Prof. Marcia Inhorn, Yale University, Spring/Summer 2018 issue ofThe Brown Journal of World Affairs).

This dramatic transformation of Arab/Islamic demography was also documented by American Enterprise Institute’s Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt.

In 2019 – in defiance of conventional wisdom and the demographic establishment – the Westernized Arab fertility, throughout the Middle East, is a byproduct of a dramatic transformation of Arab society:

(a) A radical shift from rural (farming) to urban society has drastically reduced Arab families’ need for manpower, resulting in a much smaller nuclear family.

(b) The sweeping switch from rural homes to multi-story urban apartment buildings has decreased the number of children per family.

(c) The unprecedented upgrading of the mindset and status of Arab women - who increasingly complete high school education and (in smaller numbers) pursue college degrees and career – has revolutionized their family role: from early-marriage and baby-production tasking to an equality-seeking adult partner. Unlike the past scenario of marriage at the age of 15, bearing the first child at 16, and producing babies until the age of 55, the current generation of Arab women tend to get married at the age of 20+ and completing the fertility cycle at the age of 45.

(d) The slow – but steady - Westernization of the cultural state of mind of Arab societies has shifted the acceptable structure of Arab families from multi-children to 2-3 children or less.

(e) The substantial proliferation of contraceptives – initiated by the Arab population at-large (including rural areas), not by Arab governments – has reflected the enhanced status of Arab women and the Westernization of social, educational, economic and leisure norms of Arab societies, in general, and Arab women, in particular.

(f) According to the Washington, DC-based Population Reference Bureau, Palestinian women (72%) are second only to Morocco women (78%) in their use of contraceptives. Jordan ranks third – 71% - among Arab countries.

Prof. Marcia Inhorn documents that “seven of the world’s top 15 fertility declines have occurred in Arab countries…. During 1975-1980, women in all 17 Arab nations had TFR far exceeding the world average, which was 3.85 children per woman…. Currently, many Arab countries are heading toward very low fertility, well below replacement level [2.1 babies per woman]…. In many ways, this reproductive revolution is one of the most significant social transformations to have shaped the Arab world….

“What is most impressive about this Arab fertility decline is that it has occurred even in resource-poor Arab nations…. The desire for fewer children on the part of both men and women – has led to the new Arab family…. Knowledge of contraceptive methods among Arab women had become widespread….

“Among the growing Palestinian middle class, small ‘high-quality’ families were the norm…limiting their fertility through contraception in order to invest more time, energy and money into the education and success of each individual child…. Marriage is no longer just about having children…. Arab men want fewer children in order to provide adequate financial support, a good education and paternal love to both their sons and daughters….
“Fertility rates are expected to drop well below replacement level in most Arab countries by the year 2100….”

According to the World Bank, from 1960-2017, the overall Arab World fertility rate was reduced from 6.9 births per woman to 3.3. For example, Egypt – from 6.7 to 3.2, Jordan – from 7.7 to 3.3, Syria – from 7.5 to 2.9, Lebanon – from 5.7 to 1.7, Saudi Arabia – from 7.2 to 2.5, Kuwait – from 7.2 to 2.0, West Bank and Gaza – from 6.7 births per woman in 1990 to 3.9 in 2017 [Gaza’s fertility rate is 1.0 higher than the West Bank’s, which sets the West Bank fertility rate at around 3 births per woman].

Contrary to projections made by prominent demographers and statisticians, the number of Israel’s Jewish births has surged dramatically - 74% - from 1995 (80,400 births) to 2018 (141,000), while the number of births in Israel’s Westernized Arab population has increased moderately – 20% - from 36,000 to 43,000. In 1995, the share of Jewish births, in Israel, was 69%, rising to 76.6% in 2018.

The impressive growth of Israel’s Jewish fertility rate (especially among secular women!) is attributed to a high-level of patriotism, optimism and attachment to roots; expanded fertility treatment; reduced number of abortions; and the low rate of infant mortality (3.1 babies per 1,000 births).

Israel’s Jewish demography (7 million next to 1.6 million Muslims, 140K Druz and 130K Christian Arabs) has also enjoyed annual net-immigration, while Judea & Samaria Arabs (1.85 million) have experienced systematic annual net-emigration (around 20,000 annually in recent years), which has increased since the 1993 establishment of the Palestinian Authority, and especially since the 2000 Second Intifada’. Moreover, the annual number of Israeli emigrants (exits minus returns) has been reduced substantially from 1990 (14,200) to 2016 (6,300), while Israel’s population almost doubled.

At the same time, the number of Judea and Samaria Arabs has been inflated systematically and dramatically – by over 1.2 million persons - in the following manner:

• (In violation of international regulations) The inclusion of over 400,000 people, and their descendants, living outside the Palestinian Authority for more than one year;
• The double-count of the 330,000 Jerusalem Arabs, and their descendants, by Israel and the Palestinian Authority;
• The double-count of 105,000 Palestinians, and their descendants, who received Israeli citizenship from 1997-2003 by marrying Israeli Arabs. This pathway to citizenship was eliminated, in 2003, by Israel’s Supreme Court.
• The Palestinian Authority has ignored the systematic annual net-emigration (20,000 in recent years).
• An annual gap of 20,000-60,000 births, from 1997-2011, between the documented data of the Palestinian Ministries of Health and Education, on the one hand, and the higher numbers contended/projected by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, on the other hand.
• A September 7, 2006 World Bank report documented a 32% gap between its own birth data and those published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

The 2019 demographic reality highlights a sweeping and swift Westernization of Arab demography, simultaneously with an unprecedented enhancement of Israel’s Jewish demography. Policymakers and public opinion molders who fail to read the demographic writing (reality) on the wall, are either dramatically mistaken or outrageously misleading, instilling pessimism and vacillation instead of optimism and determination.

Rav Kook's Ein Ayah

Two Days, Two Elements of the Torah’s Gift to the World 

(condensed from Ein Ayah, Shabbat 9:17)

Gemara: The Ten Commandments were given to Israel on the sixth of the month [of Sivan]. Rabbi Yossi says: on the seventh of the month.

Ein Ayah: The special month which was fit to have the Torah given in it counts its days like the days of creation. The Torah, which can be considered the “form of mankind,” i.e., it is the upper thought process, makes a person into a person. Additionally, it is the form of the entire world. After the Torah sets its imprint on man, especially engraving the divine ideals of the true divine doctrine on his heart, it becomes rooted in the midst of the “soul of the universe.”

From the perspective of the first value, that the Torah radiates on man and makes him complete, it is appropriate that the Torah be given on the sixth day of the month. This correlates to the sixth day of creation.

However, there is a broader element of the Torah, of Torah relating to all of existence, which is even more profound than its impact on man, as it completes the form of the whole world, by providing an “extra soul” for man, which elevates the spiritual character of all worlds. In this regard, the Torah correlates to the day of Shabbat, the day when Hashem “rested,” and rest was introduced to the world, giving it its lofty completeness. It is, therefore, appropriate for the Torah to have been given on the seventh of the month.

When there is a coinciding of these two great elements, the light provided to man to set his form with a divine light, and then this being part of having the whole universe enlivened and enlightened, both outlooks can exist. Therefore, there is an opinion that the Torah was given on the sixth and an opinion that it was on the seventh.

Introduce a New Era with a New Moon

(condensed from Ein Ayah, Shabbat 9:18)

Gemara: Everyone agrees that the nation came to the Sinai Desert on Rosh Chodesh (first of the month). It says here, “On this day, they came to the Sinai Desert” (Shemot 19:1), and it says there, “This month is for you the first of the months” (ibid. 12:2). Just like there it was Rosh Chodesh, so too here it was Rosh Chodesh.

Ein Ayah: The renewal of time renews the spirit of man, whether individually or nationally.

The preparations for the Exodus from Egypt, which was a great action of renewing the spirit of Israel from slavery to freedom, was aligned with renewal of time, which occurs with the new moon. For that reason, it was introduced with the Torah section referring to the connection between the Exodus and the new moon.

The same idea was true of the giving of the Torah, which was a renewal of the internal spirit. This also must have been connected to the renewal of time, as [the preparations] were introduced by saying that a new period had come, one which was more glowing, with life that was embarking on a renewal of the spiritual form in a lofty manner. “Just like there it was Rosh Chodesh, so too here it was Rosh Chodesh.”

The Clash Of American Liberal Jewry And Israeli Nationalism

by Yishai Fleisher

The recent landslide election of Benjamin Netanyahu and the ascendancy of the Israeli Right has deepened the rift between Israeli and American Jews — the latter of whom disproportionately identify with the political Left.

Days after the Israeli election, nine leading American liberal Jewish groups sent a letter to the American president they hate so much and worked so hard to prevent his becoming a president. In it, they urged Trump to preserve the "two-state solution" in the face of a pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the so-called "West Bank" territory, also known as Judea and Samaria.

Four ostensibly pro-Israel Jewish Democrats — Reps. Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey of New York, Ted Deutch of Florida, and Brad Schneider of Illinois — released a similar letter warning Israel not to annex parts of Judea and Samaria because, yet again, such a move would endanger the two-state solution.

And in an article days after Netanyahu’s election, Daniel Sokatch, the CEO of the ultra-liberal umbrella group New Israel Fund, wrote:

A move to annex the occupied territories would corrode Israel’s international standing, rupture its relationship with the American Jewish community and likely extinguish any remaining chance for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.

We have reached a point where American Jews are calling upon the American president to override the will of the Israeli people on matters of Israeli national security.

The Chutzpah of the American Jewish Liberal Leadership

Such is the clamor of American liberal Jewish leadership to preserve the failed two-state solution — which calls on Israel to cut 20 percent of its New Jersey-sized landmass and give over the most storied stretches of the Promised Land to the corrupt crooks of the PLO and the terrorist group Hamas.

Yet the last Israeli election proved, and many polls reflect, that Israelis — as opposed to the American Jewish liberal leadership — are done with the two-state solution. In the aftermath of the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the immediate takeover by jihadist group Hamas which led to three full-out wars and innumerable rockets being fired on Israel, most Israelis came to the conclusion that the "land for peace" policy is a failure. Israelis have now voiced that opinion democratically.

Much to the frustration of the American liberal Jewish establishment, the Israeli sovereignty movement, to which Netanyahu alluded and which calls for Israel to control the ancestral Jewish homeland of Judea and Samaria, is gaining momentum. And in Washington, the Trump Administration is the first presidential administration not to be reflexively pro-two-state solution. Indeed, rumors from the Beltway whisper that the Trump Administration's much-ballyhooed "Deal of the Century" does not call for Palestinian statehood at all.

Red State Jews and Blue State Jews

Being an Israeli Jew with conservative nationalistic leanings, I am often asked, especially when visiting the American heartland, why is it that American Jews are predominantly liberal? American gentiles are downright mystified as to why any Jewish person would be against what they perceive to be a natural link between conservatism and Judeo-Christian biblical values — values which, one would think, would be commonly held by Jews. Many gentiles also want to know why liberal Jews are anti-Trump and pro-Palestinian — a staunchly pro-Israel president and a pseudo-entity that many Americans perceive to be the enemy of the Jewish state.

In his 2018 New York Times article entitled, "How America’s Jews Learned to Be Liberal," Steven Weisman quotes an American Jewish Committee poll which found that "Israelis approve of President Trump’s handling of United States-Israeli relations by 77 percent… But only 34 percent of American Jews feel the same way."

Weisman concludes: "Israelis are red-state Jews. American Jews are blue-state — politically liberal in their outlook."

To be sure, there are many American Jews on the political Right who agree with Israeli nationalist policies, and there are Israelis on the political Left who are much closer to the American Jewish liberal consensus. However, the broad trends of American Jewish liberalism and Israeli Jewish nationalism are apparent.

Why do American Jews Tend to be Liberal?

Throughout the centuries, from Ukraine to England, and from Yemen to Syria, Jews lived in countries prone to anti-Semitic violence. Jews were often victims of intolerance, xenophobia, and exclusion. Yet they were able to thrive in these places by succeeding financially, excelling educationally, and by gaining social status.

In an effort to mitigate the dangers of the host country, Jews also employed a sophisticated defense mechanism — the teachings of liberalism. At the university, in the courts, in the banks, and in their dealings with local authority, Jews sent out a message of tolerance, diversity, and inclusion in hope that the host society would internalize those values and that the Jews would benefit and be spared. This strategy worked until catastrophes such as the English Edict of Expulsion of 1290, the Spanish Expulsion of 1492, and the rise of Nazism in Germany came along.

Anti-Trumpism as Self-Preservation

Today’s American Jews may not feel themselves to be living in a hostile country — and America is indeed a great country that has allowed Jews to thrive and live in peace. Still, the U.S. is a majority-gentile host country and not a Jewish state. Even with a high rate of public success and participation, Jews living in America feel a 2,000-year-old subconscious impulse to broadcast the values of tolerance and multiculturalism in an effort to mitigate any potential ferocity on the part of the ruling host.

The anti-Trump fervor that has seized American Jewry can be readily understood in this light. The American Jewish Left sees in Trump a personification of ultra-nationalism which, their collective memory tells them, leads directly to violent anti-Semitism. While President Trump seems to be completely pro-Jewish, American liberal Jews manage to paint him in anti-Semitic colors, seeing him as the source of white nationalism and the dangerous "alt-Right."

"Bring him down before he brings us down! Stop the growth of nationalism before it becomes full blown Nazism! Defang the potentially violent ruler using the messaging of liberalism while you still can!" These are instinctive and classical reactions of liberal diaspora Jewry.

Why Israelis Tend to be Nationalistic

In contrast, the modus operandi of Israeli Jews is not like that of the Diaspora Jews at all. The Jewish state is just that: An ethnic-national Jewish state in the ancient Land of Israel. The collective unconscious of Israelis tells them that they live in their own land, speak their ancient language, are rightful sovereigns, and are in the process of rebuilding the Third Commonwealth.

The message that is conveyed to the elected officials from the average Israeli citizen is not of liberalism at all, but is rather: "Rule in strength! Defeat the enemy! Defend our family nation-state and do not be overly-liberal to our foes! Never again!"

In this light, Israeli support of the current American president makes sense: Trump is understood to be a determined, defense-minded fellow sovereign, a strong ruler, and an ally.

Many American Jews are dumbfounded at the nearly ubiquitous Israeli approval of a man they detest so much. But from across the pond, and in the tough Middle East reality, things look quite different. Trump’s nationalism and certitude might threaten American liberal Jews, but these characteristics play well in Israel where those very characteristics are needed and admired.

Immigration Policy and the Wall

Another example of the difference in outlook between American and Israeli Jews can be seen in immigration policy. American liberal Jews perceive themselves to be an ethnic-religious minority in America and descendants of recent immigrants. They tend to identify with potential incomers — and therefore call for a liberal immigration policy. Unsurprisingly then, Trump’s tough stance on Muslim and Mexican immigration is perceived as a direct attack on American liberal Jews and their values.

The Israeli Jew, however, sees it quite differently. For many Israelis, African or Arab migration to Israel is seen as a threat — a concerted effort to chip away at the Jewish state from the inside and endanger Israel’s stability. In Israel, Trump’s wall policy is understood to be a normal course of action for a sovereign nation surrounded by hostile countries. Indeed, Israel itself has put up defensive walls!

Clearly, the contrast in the reality of Israeli Jews and American Jews leads to policy prescriptions that are drastically different. The very modes of thinking about these problems are oceans apart.

For Some, Nationalism Looks Like Fascism

So if Israeli Jews are red-state Jews and American Jews are blue-state Jews, it is not surprising that they often collide with one another.

American liberal Jews tend to see the "Palestinians" as a downtrodden minority, but Israelis, in large measure, see them as part of hostile Arab Middle East majority. Similarly, the "West Bank" which the American liberal establishment continues to see as "occupied" is seen by a majority of Israelis as an integral part of our ancestral homeland. The same goes for the behavior of the Israeli army, which American liberals often see as being too forceful, while Israelis, whose children serve on the front lines, often see as being too restrained.

In turn, many Israelis discount American liberal Jewry’s policy prescriptions. Without verbalizing it, Israelis wonder whether American Jews, whose approach to statecraft is one of a powerful and vocal minority in a host country, can give useful advice to Israeli Jews who drive tanks and fly jets in defense of their own threatened yet sovereign Jewish state.

Israel’s Security is NOT a Jewish Issue

Recently, I was in Washington and sat with a Christian red-state congressman. We talked about Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the position of the "settlers" — Jews proudly living in the ancestral homeland and blocking a jihadist takeover — who clearly favor Israeli control of the areas in which they live. Suddenly, the congressman asked me: "OK, but what will my colleagues, the Democratic Jewish congressmen, say about this?"

I replied: "Congressman, do you ask these Democratic Jewish congressmen how to vote on issues of abortion? Of course not. So why would you ask them about Judea and Samaria? What should be done with these territories is an Israeli issue — not a Jewish issue. The American liberal congressmen don’t serve the Israeli constituency, they haven't served in the Israeli army, and they don’t bear the burden of dealing with jihadism. They don’t own this issue."

Indeed, when it comes to policy issues in the Jewish world, there should be a distinction between general Jewish issues and local ones. General Jewish issues might be the question of conversion, or even of religious control at the Western Wall. However, the issues of Israel foreign policy, Israel security, dealing with Palestinians, decisions on Judea and Samaria, Knesset election — these are not general Jewish issues, but rather are Israeli issues. The loud parading and weighing-in of the collective American liberal Jewish voice on strictly Israeli issues is illogical, patronizing, and shameful.

Loving Israel to Death

American Jews and Israeli Jews are two related communities living across the ocean who share DNA, familiarity, goodwill, a love of the Torah, and a love of the homeland. However, we live very different lives and have consequently developed a very different mindset.

Rather than fighting about it, the way forward is to adopt a posture of mutual respect and support where possible — but also allow for some daylight between one another when dealing with respective regional policy issues. It’s great to pipe up because it shows love and care, but on the other hand, since the American Jewish and Israeli realities and perspectives are so different, it is also good to know when to butt out.

Those American Jews who publicly defend Israel’s choices give voice to the Israeli policies in the halls of American power — and that is an important task. Yet those American liberal Jewish voices who have become detractors from Israeli policy should have less sway. They endanger the U.S.-Israel alliance and, frankly, endanger Israel’s security. They advocate for bad policy, like the misbegotten "two-state solution," for a region they do not understand and in circumstances they do not share. They go against the will of the Israeli people and give Jewish cover to anti-Israel forces. Their mindset and behavior are that of a minority ethnic group living in a host country, and not like that of Israel — a sovereign state, an American ally, and a burgeoning regional power dealing with the harsh everyday reality of the Middle East.

Yishai Fleisher is the International Spokesman of the Jewish Community of Hebron and an Israeli broadcaster.

Rav Kook on Parashat Acharei Mot: The Goat for Azazel

Perhaps the most unusual of all the Temple services was the Yom Kippur ceremony of Azazel, sending off a goat into the wilderness, symbolically carrying away the sins of Israel. No other Temple offering was treated in such a fashion. Even more surprising, immediately after describing the Yom Kippur service, the Torah warns, “And they will stop sacrificing to the demons who tempt them” (Lev. 17:7). The text implies that the goat sent to Azazel is the sole exception to this rule, in apparent contradiction to the fundamental principles of the Temple service. Was this unusual ritual a “sacrifice to the demons”?

The Highest Form of Forgiveness

In order to understand the meaning of the Azazel service, we must appreciate the nature of the forgiveness and atonement of Yom Kippur.

The highest level of forgiveness emanates from the very source of divine chesed. It comes from an infinite greatness that embraces both the most comprehensive vision and the most detailed scrutiny. This level knows the holy and the good with all of their benefits, as well as the profane and the evil with all of their harm. It recognizes that all is measured on the exacting scale of divine justice, and that the tendencies towards evil and destruction also serve a purpose in the universe. Such an elevated level of forgiveness understands how, in the overall picture, everything fits together.

This recognition creates a complicated dialectic. There is a clear distinction between good and evil, truth and falsehood, nobility and debasement. Absolute truth demands that we confront the paths of idolatry and evil, in deed and thought; it opposes all repulsiveness, impurity and sin. Still, in its greatness, it finds a place for all. Only an elevated understanding can absorb this concept: how to combine together all aspects of the universe, how to arrange each force, how to extend a measured hand to all opposites, while properly demarcating their boundaries.

The forgiveness of Yom Kippur aspires to this lofty outlook, as expressed in the Azazel offering. Azazel is the worship of demons — the demonic wildness and unrestrained barbarity to be found in human nature. For this reason, the offering was sent to a desolate cliff in the untamed wilderness. The elevated service of Yom Kippur is able to attain a level that confers a limited recognition even to the demonic evil of Azazel. At this level, all flaws are transformed and rectified.

Sent Away to the Wilderness

The abstract knowledge that evil also has a purpose in the world must be acknowledged in some fashion in our service of God. This acknowledgment occurs in the elevated service of Yom Kippur. In practical ethics, however, there is no place for this knowledge. Heaven forbid that evil should be considered good, or that the wicked should be considered righteous. Therefore, the goat for Azazel was sent to a desolate, barren place — a place uninhabited by people. Human society must be based on a just way of life, led by aspirations of holiness and purity.

(Gold from the Land of Israel, pp. 200-201. Adapted from Olat Re’iyah vol. II p. 357; Shemonah Kevatzim IV:91, V:193)

The Good Prince and the Iran deal

by Victor Rosenthal

It’s become a truism that the hatred and harassment of individual Jews and Jewish communities that once was prevalent in the lands of the diaspora before the rebirth of a Jewish state has since morphed into loathing and persecution of that state.

There are other parallels. Jewish communities in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East had a precarious existence, depending on the good will of the local prince or emir. If the ruler liked the Jews – or, probably more correctly – found them more useful than despicable, they could live their lives relatively undisturbed. If, on the other hand – well, you know the story.

Today the position of the Jewish state is also dependent on powerful people and entities far beyond Israel’s control. In particular, the State of Israel is strongly affected by the policies and actions of the US. In America, foreign policy, and especially practical actions and reactions to events in the international arena, are primarily in the hands of the president and his appointees. These days, the President of the United States is the “prince” whose attitude most affects whether Israel thrives or withers.

Israel could have tried harder to reduce her dependence on the US and her susceptibility to pressure from the American government. She should have. I would like to believe that the desirability of this is becoming evident to Israeli officials, but the pull of “free” military hardware is hard to ignore. And there is some truth in the idea that Israelis simply admire the US and value a close relationship with her.

In recent times, Khamenei has been playing Haman to the American president’s Ahasuerus. The Iranian playbook calls for Israel to be battered by simultaneous attacks from Hezbollah’s and Hamas’ rocket forces, and invaded by proxies from both the North and South. The regime is working on increasing the number, payloads, defensibility, and accuracy of the rockets in the hands of her proxies as well as in Iran herself. At the same time she is developing new proxies by establishing Iraqi Shiite militias in Syria, modeled on the Lebanese Hezbollah. All this is intended to be shielded under a nuclear umbrella, whose development is proceeding.

Taken by itself, it seems that war between Israel and Iran is guaranteed. But there is one other possibility – the only alternative that I can imagine, given the objectives of the Iranian regime. And that is that the regime can be toppled by internal opposition encouraged by economic pressure from the US.

It’s a longshot, because a regime that is demonstrably willing to shoot down anti-government protesters in the street, that is buttressed by paramilitary militias, and that terrorizes and murders opposition figures, is hard to overthrow. The regime is quite prepared to control the allocation of resources in such a way that the general population suffers bitterly as long it remains in power, so economic pressure needs to be tough and protracted.

The alternative is a very destructive war for both Israel and Iran. If it comes to this, then I would hope that Israel will strike preemptively and hard. But that’s another discussion.

So now we can see the immediate effect of the attitude by the American president, the good or bad “prince” that holds the destiny of the Jewish community – in this case the State of Israel – in his hands. Barack Obama, following a nakedly anti-Israel script originally laid down in the 2006 Iraq Study Report (written in part by his close advisor Ben Rhodes), facilitated the Iranian plan. His administration negotiated a deal with the Iranians that removed economic sanctions, shielded the Iranian nuclear project, and even provided pallets of cash which went to support Iranian terrorist initiatives in Lebanon and Syria. At the same time, he punished Israeli PM Netanyahu whenever possible, kept up the pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians that would weaken Israel’s ability to defend herself, and – along with officials like Secretary of State Kerry – directly contributed to the public demonization of the Jewish state.

President Trump, on the other hand, has been the Good Prince. He recognized Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, reduced subsidies to the Palestinians, and – it seems – will not try to force the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state as a dagger next to Israel’s heart. Most important, he has taken the US out of the Iran deal and re-imposed sanctions – the only possible road to a peaceful end to Iranian aggression.

I know I am not exaggerating when I say that President Trump is a controversial figure in the US. But he is not controversial in Israel, where almost everyone agrees that he has been the most pro-Israel president – in terms of actual actions, not just words – since Truman. And most Israelis would be happy to see him re-elected in 2020.

But that’s up to American voters to decide. And unfortunately, perhaps in part because Trump has been so pro-Israel, many of his opponents have moved in the opposite direction. Six of the most likely candidates to oppose Trump have said that if elected they would restore US participation in the nuclear deal – that is, they would remove the sanctions re-imposed by President Trump. The Democratic National Committee also passed a resolution calling for the US to return to the deal. The phony “pro-Israel” organization J Street has been lobbying candidates to speak out in favor of the deal and even more ominously, Obama’s shadowy National Security Action group, co-chaired by the ever-present Ben Rhodes, is pushing to restore the Obama Administration’s dangerous Iran policy.

This may be effective as anti-Trump or anti-Israel policy, but it is not in the American interest. The Iranian regime has threatened over and over to attack American assetsor even to conduct terrorist attacks in the US herself. “Death to America” is not just a slogan, and the US is not referred to as “The Great Satan” out of desire for friendship. The policy of rapprochement pursued by the Obama Administration was pocketed and exploited by the regime, which did not waver from its objectives of total control of the Middle East and its resources, the establishment of a Shiite caliphate, and – its ultimate goal – replacing the US as the dominant world superpower.

If the Iran deal becomes an issue in the 2020 election, it will be bad for Israel, which does not want to be seen as “taking sides” in an American election. But Trump will likely cite Israel’s security as part of his reason for re-imposing sanctions, while his opponents will accuse “the Israel lobby” of undue influence on US policy. Anything that Israel does or says relating to Iran will be interpreted as improper intervention in the election.

And just like the unfortunate Jews in the Pale of Settlement and the Jewish neighborhoods of Alexandria or Baghdad, the Jewish state will find herself yet again unwillingly involved in and battered by the conflicts of princes.

"Aharon shall enter...."

by Rabbi Pinchas Winston

Aharon shall enter the Holy with this: with a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. (Vayikra 16:3)

THE SUSPENSE IS killing me!” Zevulun told his friend Naphtali. “It seems like he’s been in there forever!”

Naphtali smiled. “Patience has never been your strong point,” he told his friend of many years.

“You’re not nervous, not even a little bit?”

Naphtali thought before he answered. Sure, he was nervous, but there would be plenty of time to panic if the outcome were not good. In the meantime, he chose to remain calm, and that is what he told his friend.

A few more “eternal” minutes passed, and then they finally heard a commotion. It built quickly until they could clearly hear the words, “He’s OUT! The Kohen Gadol is out of the Kodesh Kodashim!”

Instantly, the mood changed. Pensive faces became filled with joy. People surged forward to try to escort the Kohen Gadol back to his home. He had done his job and he had done it well. The nation had divine forgiveness, and had survived another Yom Kippur. It was the happiest moment of the year!

“This is the end of a long process,” Naphtali told Zevulun, after they returned to Zevulun’s home an hour later.

“I know that,” Zevulun said. “Seven days ago, the Kohen Gadol was sequestered in the Palhedrin Chamber in the Bais HaMikdash. That’s when he reviewed the service with the chachamim. He was also sprinkled with spring water containing ashes of the Red Heifer, and he practiced the incense-offering ritual in the Avitnas Chamber.”

“Good for you,” Naphtali said, “you’ve learned your mishnayos well!”

“I sure did, and I’m not done yet. On Yom Kippur itself, the Kohen Gadol had to follow a precise order of services, sacrifices, and purifications, but for that I have to refer to my notes.”

Zevulun looked around, and then saw what he was looking for on a small shelf in the corner. He walked over, took a small scroll of parchment from the shelf, and began to unroll it.

His family had a modest home, and in those days they still had dirt floors. There were a few pieces of homemade furniture, and that was it. It was all people expected in Temple times, and it was enough.

Zevulun continued. “First the Kohen Gadol offered the regular daily offering…”

“The Tamid,” Naphtali inserted.

“Right, the Tamid,” Zevulun confirmed. “It was usually performed by ordinary kohanim, but on Yom Kippur the Kohen Gadol offered it, wearing special golden garments that he put on after immersing in a mikvah and washing his hands and feet. After that, he immersed again in a special mikvah in the Temple courtyard, again washing his hands and feet, and changed into special linen garments. Thus he immersed and washed his hands and feet twice, both before putting on the golden garments and before putting on the linen garments.”

“I’m exhausted just thinking about everything he had to do until this point!” Naphtali said, feigning exhaustion.

“Yeah, well, it was far from over. Next came the his personal sin-offering, a bull. The Kohen Gadol leaned on it and made a confession on behalf of himself and his household, pronouncing the Tetragrammaton. All the people who heard it prostrated themselves…”

“That is AWESOME!” Naphtali interjected.

“It WAS…IS…” Zevulun agreed, looking up from the scroll he held between his hands. “Perhaps one day WE will merit to be one of those fortunate people!”

“Then the Kohen Gadol slaughtered the bull as a sin-offering,” he said returning to his scroll, “and received its blood in a bowl.”

He looked up at Naphtali again to see if he still had his interest. The fascinated look on his face indicated that he did, so he continued.

“Next came the goral—lottery of the goats. At the Nikanor Gate, the Kohen Gadol drew lots from a lottery box for two identical goats. One was selected ‘for God,’ and one ‘for Azazel.’”

“My father told me a little bit about the mystery of Azazel.” Naphtali cut in.

Zevulun looked up and said, “I’m all ears! I’ve wondered about this part of the service for a while now.”

“If I remember correctly, it has to do with giving the Satan his due. Everything in Creation survives because of the light of God, even evil. Creation was made for free will, and free will requires that good AND evil exist. So God maintains evil with a specific number of holy sparks to keep it going—but only enough to TEST us, not OVERWHELM us. When we sin, we ‘feed’ it extra holy sparks, making it stronger and far more destructive.”

“Hmm,” Zevulun said, mournfully. “We’ve seen just HOW true that is…”

“Unfortunately yes,” Naphtali agreed, and then added, “Pushing the goat off the cliff may look barbaric, especially to a spiritual entity like the Sitra Achra, but every PHYSICAL act has SPIRITUAL ramifications. THIS act is like throwing a bone to a dog, because when we give the Sitra Achra his due, he gets off OUR case…”

“And that means fewer accusations against the Jewish people,” Zevulun interjected.

“Hence the forgiveness power of Yom Kippur,” Naphtali completed.

Zevulun considered the idea. “Good explanation,” he said, and then returned to his scroll and explanation.

“The Kohen Gadol tied a red band around the horns of the goat ‘for Azazel,’ which turns white if the Jewish people are forgiven…”

“As happened this year, thank God!” Naphtali said.”

Zevulun glanced through his scroll until the end and, realizing that he had more material to share than he had time—and perhaps even patience—to do in one sitting, he decided to go into overview mode instead.

“There’s still a fair bit to go over,” he told Naphtali.

“Why don’t you just cover the most basic details? We can fill in the gaps later,” Naphtali suggested.

“My plan exactly,” Zevulun said. “Yom Kippur is coming to an end…”

He opened the scroll wider in order to increase his view of the main headings. He said, “Next came the incense preparation. The Kohen Gadol took a shovel full of embers with a special shovel from the altar. He filled his hands with the incense and placed it in a vessel.”

“Some say this is the most physically difficult part of the service,” Naphtali interjected, “because the Kohen Gadol has to keep the shovelful of glowing coals balanced, using his armpit or teeth, while filling his hands with the incense.”

“Right. And then, holding the shovel and the vessel, he enters the Kodesh Kodashim and places the shovel between the poles of the Ark.”

“Next?” Naphtali prompted.

“Next was the sprinkling of bull's blood in the Holy of Holies…the goat for God as a sin-offering for kohanim. The blood of the goat was sprinkled in the Kodesh Kodashim.”

“Good…” Naphtali said approvingly. “I’m impressed that you covered all this.”

Zevulun just smiled as he spoke. “This was followed by the sprinkling of blood in the Kodesh, on the other side of the Paroches. The Kohen Gadol took the bull's blood from the stand and sprinkled it with his finger eight times in the direction of the Paroches. He then took the bowl with the goat's blood and sprinkled it eight times in the same manner, putting it back on the stand.”

Naphtali could see that Zevulun was becoming faint from the fast. “Why don’t you take a break for a few minutes,” he said, “and let me do the talking.”

Zevulun hesitated, but then he felt the full impact of expending so much energy on a fast day. He said, “Good idea,” and handed the scroll to Naphtali, showing him where he had left off. Naphtali began to read.

“You have here that next was the smearing of blood on the Golden Incense Altar. The Kohen Gadol removed the goat’s blood from the stand and mixed it with the bull’s blood. Starting at the northeast corner, he then smeared the mixture of blood on each of the four corners of the altar in the Heichal. After that, he sprinkled the blood eight times on the altar.”

“The Kohen Gadol left the Heichal and walked to the east side of the Azarah. Near the Nikanor Gate, he leaned his hands on the goat ‘for Azazel’ and confessed the sins of the entire people of Israel. The people prostrated themselves when he pronounced the Tetragrammaton. While he made a general confession, individuals in the crowd at the Temple would confess privately. The Kohen Gadol then sent the goat off to the wilderness. The goat was led to a cliff outside Jerusalem and pushed off its edge.”

“While the goat for Azazel was being led to the cliff, the Kohen Gadol removed the insides of the bull, and intertwined the bodies of the bull and goat. Others took the bodies to the ‘Place of the Ashes,’ where they were burned after it was confirmed that the goat for Azazel had reached the wilderness.”

“After it was confirmed that the goat had been pushed off the cliff, the Kohen Gadol passed through the Nikanor Gate into the Ezras Nashim and read sections of the Torah describing Yom Kippur and its sacrifices.”

Zevulun just kept nodding his head at different places as if to confirm the details being read. Naphtali continued.

“The Kohen Gadol removed his linen garments, immersed in the mikvah in the Temple courtyard, and changed into a second set of special golden garments. He washed his hands and feet both before removing the linen garments and after putting on the golden ones…”

Now it was Naphtali’s turn to feel weak. He paused, took a breath, and looked at Zevulun.

“Perhaps,” Zevulun suggested, “we should go over the rest of the service after we have eaten and regained our strength!”

“Timely suggestion,” Naphtali agreed, rolling up the scroll and handing it to Zevulun.

True to their word, the next day on full stomachs they finished what they had started. They covered the two rams of an olah offering, the mussaf offering, the burning of innards of the bull and goat on the outer altar, the third garment change, the removal of the incense from the Holy of Holies, the fourth garment change, and finally the afternoon continual offering.

“What a day that must have been for the Kohen Gadol!” Zevulun concluded.

“For sure,” Naphtali agreed. “The Kohen Gadol wore five sets of garments, immersed in the mikvah five times, and washed his hands and feet ten times. The sacrifices included two daily lambs, one bull, two goats, and two rams, with accompanying minchah offerings, wine libations, and three incense offerings. He entered the Holy of Holies three times and he pronounced the Tetragrammaton three times, once for each confession.”

“It must have taken a lot of stamina,” Zevulun mused.

“And fear of God,” Naphtali added.

“Fear of God and physical stamina…” Zevulun said. “That’s a great combination to have if you’re the Kohen Gadol…”

“Or just a good Jew!” Naphtali threw in.

“Or just a good Jew,” Zevulun agreed.

The US Sanctions on Mullahs are Working

by Majid Rafizadeh

• "The golden days are gone and will never return. Iran doesn't have enough money to give us." -- A militant with an Iranian-backed militia in Syria, New York Times, March 26, 2019.
• Feeling the pressure of sanctions on Iran, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, has also called on his group's fundraising arm "to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle."
• Iran's national currency, the rial, has dropped to historic lows — one US dollar, which equaled approximately 35,000 rials in November of 2017, now buys you nearly 130,000 rials.

Critics of US President Donald Trump and his policy regarding the Iranian government are quick to condemn him for the sanctions he has imposed on the theocratic establishment. Their argument is anchored in the idea that the only informed and effective policy that will deal with Iran's clerical establishment is rooted in enticing them in from the cold: in oher words, appeasement.

These critics had the opportunity to initiate and expand appeasement policies during the eight-year administration of former President Barack Obama. Throughout this time, President Obama made unprecedented concessions in an attempt to appease the ruling mullahs. He met them with generosity and flexibility every step of the way. What was the outcome?

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No, it’s not about “race”

by Victor Rosenthal

Americans need to take a vacation from using the word “racist,” at least in connection with Israel, because they don’t have the slightest idea of what they are talking about, and it’s insulting as hell. Especially from presidential hopefuls:

That [US-Israel] relationship, if it is to be successful, must transcend partisanship in the United States, and it must be able to transcend a prime minister who is racist, as he warns about Arabs coming to the polls, who wants to defy any prospect for peace as he threatens to annex the West Bank, and who has sided with a far-right, racist party in order to maintain his hold on power. – Beto O’Rourke

I just believe that the United States should deal with the Middle East on a level playing field basis. In other words, the goal must be to try to bring people together and not just support one country, which is now run by a right-wing – dare I say – racist government. – Bernie Sanders

I know that Americans are obsessed with race. It’s understandable, given the historical facts that half of the country had a slavery-based economy until 1865, that vicious legally-sanctioned discrimination against the descendants of those slaves persisted until the 1960s, and that racial hatreds – on the part of both whites and blacks – are still prevalent in American society.

This is an American problem. It is not Israel’s problem, although Israel’s problem is based in history, too. It is the history of violent Arab/Muslim rejection of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the region, which is championed today by the Palestinian Arab leadership represented by the PLO and Hamas.

Israel’s problem is not race-related. Jews and Arabs are closer genetically than Jews – even Ashkenazi Jews – and Europeans. It is not color-related. Jews and Arabs both come in all colors. It is not even an ethnic conflict, since Jews and Arabs can and do get along – despite many cultural differences – in Israel, in environments where the influence of the PLO and Hamas is weak.

Our conflict is a violent political conflict. But unlike similar conflicts all over the world, ours is not allowed to end. The Jewish people has spiritual, historical, legal, aboriginal, and moral rights to what we call the Land of Israel, and we’ve defended those rights through several wars. But for two main reasons, the conflict cannot be ended.

One reason is that the Western world is not happy with the idea of a sovereign Jewish state. It doesn’t like the idea of an ethnic nation-state in general, and it doesn’t like the idea of a Jewish one in particular. It has internalized the KGB-developed narrative of a Palestinian people whose “human rights” are denied by the very existence of a Jewish state. So the West keeps pushing various “solutions,” and the Arabs keep rejecting the ones that allow the Jewish state to continue to exist.

Wars cause population shifts. Three million Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia after WWII. They do not have a “right of return,” and the world understands. Some 800,000 Jews were forced to leave Arab countries after 1948. Most went to Israel. Nobody dreamed that they might have a “right of return” to Baghdad or Algiers. Nobody established a special UN agency to take care of them and their descendants until this claimed “right” could be exercised. But the West coddled the Arab refugees from the 1948 war and the UN encouraged them in their fantasy of return.

The meddling of the West is problematic, but the second reason is more serious. The Jews are stupid. Yes, you heard that right. The much-vaunted Jewish mind, which has produced so many Nobel Prizes, has not been able to figure out that when someone is trying to kill you, the most moral thing to do is to fight back.

I know, it’s in the Talmud: “When someone is coming to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” (Sanhedrin 72a). But we don’t do that. The Arabs ethnically cleansed every last Jew from the areas they occupied in 1948, but we didn’t do the same (contrary to Arab propaganda, very few of the Arabs who fled Israel at that time were driven out by force). The Jordanians violated the cease-fire agreement and refused to allow Jews or Christians to visit their holy sites in Jerusalem and Hevron. They turned synagogues into stables and tore up Jewish gravestones to build urinals. The Jews, on the other hand, ultimately granted the Arabs in Israel full citizenship, so they could elect Knesset members who support terrorism against Jews.

In 1967 they came to kill us again, and this time we conquered Jerusalem, and all of Judea and Samaria and Gaza. But we still didn’t kick them out, and we even gave them control of the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest place. And what a surprise – we are not allowed to pray there, and they have ripped out tons of earth from underneath the mount, destroying Jewish history, maybe even artifacts of the first Temple! And we knew about it and didn’t stop them.

The Jews are stupid because they think they should be “better” than their enemies, according to some Western/Christian standard that even the hypocritical West doesn’t live up to. The ones who wrote the Talmud were right after all.

There is no shortage of hatred here in our region, but it is not racism. And it is mostly Jew-hatred on the Arab side. There are some Jews that hate Arabs, usually because of a bad experience, such as losing a mother or a child to terrorism, but the government, media, and cultural establishment have sent a message of peace and tolerance since the beginning of the state and especially since the Oslo period of the 1990s. The PLO and Hamas have done precisely the opposite, from the time of the father of Palestinian nationalism, Haj Amin el-Husseini, who incited pogroms in the 1920s and then spent WWII in Berlin, where he encouraged Hitler to kill as many Jews as possible, raised an SS division from Bosnian Muslims, and broadcast anti-Jewish propaganda to the Middle East in Arabic.

Husseini’s disciple Yasser Arafat initially set up the Palestinian Authority educational system, geared to teach irredentism and Jew-hatred; he initiated the policy of venerating and paying terrorists who murder Jews. His successor Mahmoud Abbas continued and expanded it. Now there is a whole generation of potential murderers among the Palestinian Arabs, who see Jews not as people, but only as objects of hate, the filthy offspring of apes and pigs. Today, a Palestinian teenager who is chastised by his parents might take a knife and slaughter a Jew in the street to redeem himself.

The Jew-hatred that burns so hot among the Palestinian Arabs, nurtured over the years by the Palestinian leadership and tolerated and even subsidized by the West, is the single most important factor that prevents a peaceful end to the conflict here.

But that doesn’t fit Bernie and Beto’s worldview. They worry about the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs, but don’t notice that the right to life of the Jews in Israel is threatened by an array of dozens of countries, including some that are armed to the teeth with rockets aimed at Israel. They think that Israel has not offered enough to the Palestinians, despite the fact that she offered far more than she could afford several times, and the offers were rejected – because no offer that allows the continued existence of a Jewish state will be acceptable to them.

The Jews have behaved stupidly, but the growth of the very right-wing politics in Israel that Beto and Bernie decry shows that they are finally smartening up.

American Democratic politicians should do the same.

Free Will vs. The Master of Human Events

BS”D
Parashat Kedoshim 5779
by HaRav Nachman Kahana

Judaism, in general, encourages constructive questioning and debate, but the holiday of Pesach utilizes this mode of education as its main avenue for transmitting to the younger generation the Egyptian slavery experience and its exhilarating feelings of freedom. But however numerous the questions and proposed answers, there is no end to the queries in the multi-faceted relationship between HaShem and his chosen people.

At the seder night I posed the following question:

As much as the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea was, with its suspense-filled beginning and its dramatic finale, it appears to me to have been an overreaction. The Egyptians lost their patience with the Jewish God; so, on the night of the 15 of Nissan, Paro himself went to Moshe and literally threw the Jews out of Egypt. In the morning after, when Paro and his cabinet sobered up and realized the implications of their actions, Paro gathered his world-power army and raced to return the Jews to Egypt. HaShem could have made a very impressive miracle with a massive earthquake to swallow up Paro and his hundreds of thousands of soldiers, which would have been no less impressive than the splitting of the sea’s waters. So why the Red Sea extravaganza?

I suggested: HaShem had a specific three-stage agenda that He had set forth for the Jewish nation. Exodus from Egypt; revelation of His holy Torah to His chosen people at Mount Sinai; all leading and intended for the ultimate goal of liberating Eretz Yisrael, where the Torah would be implemented as the Jewish way of life.

One does not have to possess godly powers to know that had HaShem destroyed the Egyptians on their side of the Red Sea by an earthquake or any other miraculous event, the vast majority of Jews would have decided that since the enemy was no more, they could now return to Egypt and establish — a Jewish state on both sides of the mighty Nile, instead of both sides of the modest Jordan river.

Therefore, HaShem devised the situation whereby the Jews had no choice but to 1) cross over to the other side of the sea, so that 2) when the waters returned to their natural state the Jews could no longer return to the land of their galut.

This answer is based on the philosophical principle that man is free to make his choices in life without godly intervention or interference; and as such is responsible for his or her choices, regardless of their outcome. But while this is transpiring, HaShem works around human frailties and devious choices to create situations where the outcome of man’s free choices will always conclude in the manner that HaShem desires.

According to the natural, logical flow of life, the Jews would certainly have chosen to return to Egypt after the demise of the Egyptian army, as evidenced by — whenever the people faced great hardship in the desert, they threatened Moshe with returning to Egypt. So HaShem created the situation whereby the people found themselves on the other side of the Red Sea unable to cross back toward homeland Egypt. The Jews were left with their potential decision to return, but HaShem managed human affairs without coercing the Jews to make the choices that HaShem wanted. Hence the outcome would in any event be that the Jews would have to follow Moshe into the wilderness.

Left to the ideological and religious outlook of the majority of our religious leadership, Medinat Yisrael would never had come about. So, the Creator wove history to pass-by the leaders and brought about the creation of the State through events over which the leadership had no control.

In conclusion: There is no contradiction between our free will and HaShem as the Master of Human events. We make our decisions and are thus responsible for them in accordance to what the Torah demands of a Jew; but HaShem is always present, creating the factors which will bring about events to the conclusion that He wishes. An example of this is one who is in on a train. He can choose in which car he wants to ride, and to sit in any seat, facing forward or backward. He can read, daven or sleep, but he has no control over the train’s direction or its speed.

Shabbat Shalom,
Nachman Kahana
Copyright © 5779/2019 Nachman Kahana

From Political Freedom to Spiritual Freedom

by HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

The counting of the Omer comes between two Minchah offerings, the barley offering brought on the second day of Pesach, and the wheat offering brought on Shavuot. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook explains that these two offerings hint to us about man’s gradual spiritual improvement. That is, the Rabbis viewed barley as an animal food, alluding to man on a bestial level, and they viewed wheat as a food for human beings, alluding to the highest spiritual level man has ever achieved, that of the Sinai Revelation.

When an infant is born, we ask how much he weighed. By the time he comes under the marriage canopy, however, we have other questions. We want to know if he is a good person with good traits and good deeds. It is the same during the counting of the Omer. At the start of Pesach we are preoccupied with the Jews’ material and physical survival, and at the end, when we get to Shavuot, we are more concerned with the spiritual level of the indidual Jew and the Jewish People.

Right now, our national rebirth is undergoing a similar process. In our prayers we beseech G-d to “bring us speedily to our land, with our heads held high [komemiyut].” Based on the word “komemiyut,” which appears in Leviticus 26:13, our sages (Bava Batra 75a) teach that redemption will come in two “komot” or stages. In the first stage, we are occupied with the physical construction of a state, but we are advancing on to the next stage, involving the spiritual status of the nation, as at the Revelation.

Similarly in the past, we left Egyptian servitude for political freedom, and from there we marched on towards the Sinai Revelation, fifty days after the Exodus, where we achieved everlasting spiritual freedom.

Through achievement of this political and spiritual freedom together, with the People of Israel living in the Land of Israel, may we merit to see all mankind enjoying material plenty and spiritual light and everything that is good, as indeed G-d promised Abraham: “Go away from your land... to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation... You shall become a blessing. All the families of the earth shall be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Looking forward to complete redemption,
Shabbat Shalom,
Chodesh Tov.

The Atonement of Yom Kippur and Eretz Yisrael

by HaRav Mordechai Greenberg
Nasi HaYeshiva, Kerem B'Yavneh

The parsha opens with the holiness of Yom Kippur and the atonement of the two goats, and finishes with the passage of the forbidden relationships, which is also connected to the subject of Eretz Yisrael, as it says: "The practice of the land of Egypt ... and the practice of the land of Canaan to which I bring you do not perform.'" (Vayikra 18:3) It also ends: "Do not become contaminated through any of these; for through all of these the nations that I expel before you became contaminated. The land became contaminated and I recalled its iniquity upon it; and the land disgorged its inhabitants." (18:24-25) And, later on: "Let not the land disgorge you for having contaminated it as it disgorged the nation that was before you." (18:28)

The Yom Kippur atonement is rooted in the distinction between Am Yisrael and the rest of the nations of the world. "The foundation of Jewish thought is the awareness of the Divine value of the nation's soul." (Nechamat Yisrael, by Rav Kook zt"l) Due to this, the perspective on sin is different.

If the inner content is G-dly, then the evil deeds are external and do not cling to the soul. "But you who cling to Hashem your G-d." (Devarim 4:4) Chazal ask: "But it says, 'who were attached to Baal Peor?'" They answer: "'Who were attached to Baal Peor' – as a bracelet is attached to a woman's hand; 'But you who cling' – really cling." (Sanhedrin 64a) Even the sin of idol worship is viewed as something external that does not reflect the inner reality. Therefore, wiping clean and atonement are possible.

This is not the case with the rest of the nations of the world, whose external actions are compatible with their inner content and are derived from it. Therefore, when Hashem wished to give them the Torah, they asked to know what was written in it and then refused to accept it. The descendants of Esav refused the Torah because it says: "You shall not murder." Yishmael's descendants refused because it says: "You shall not steal." Amon and Moav refused because it says: "You shall not commit adultery." Only Am Yisrael said: "We will do and we will obey," since the Torah's dictates are compatible with their inner selves.

Chazal provide a beautiful parable on the pasuk: "Do not view me with contempt, despite my swarthiness (Shir Hashirim Rabbah 1:6):

Once there was a noblewoman who had a Negro maid that went to draw water from the well, she and her friend. [The maid] told her friend: "Tomorrow, my master will divorce his wife and marry me." [Her friend] said: "Why?" [The maid answered:] "Because her hands were black with dirt." [Her friend] said to her: '"Oh, great fool, let your ears hear what your mouth is saying! If his wife, whom he loves very much – you said that because her hands were black with dirt for the moment he wanted to divorce her; you, who are dirty and black from your mother's womb your entire life – how much more so!"

Thus, since the nations of the world taunt Israel and say: This nation exchanged its Glory, as it says "They exchanged their glory" – Am Yisrael say to them: "If for [worshipping the golden calf for] the moment, we were liable thus, you [are liable] all the more so!"

The Maharal explains that the hands are busy with external things, so that even if they become dirty it is possible to wipe them off. The same is true for is idol worship among Israel. They are "attached" like a bracelet to a woman's arm, that can be worn and removed. This is not the case with the nations of the world, who are black from the womb and from birth and there is no possibility of removing the blackness.

Yom Kippur is the day where Am Yisrael's Godly virtue is revealed. They are above the natural order, and therefore abstain from the five corporeal activities:

Man is on the level of angel. His sin must be removed until he is like an angel ... Therefore, He commanded [man] to afflict himself. All this to remove and minimize the body until it becomes as holy as an angel." (Drashot Maharal for Shabbat Shuva)

Therefore, all the deeds of Yom Kippur come to teach the value of Am Yisrael and their devotion to Hashem. This is why the Kohen Gadol enters the innermost sanctum, and sprinkles eight times, one upwards and seven downwards to show Am Yisrael's connection to the supernatural world that is signified by the number eight. Seven represents the natural world, and eight is above nature, and from this comes the atonement.

This is the sacrificial goat that is sent to the wilderness, because the goat symbolizes Esav and the evil inclination, as the word "sa'ir" (goat) has the same numerical value as the word "hayetzer hara" (evil inclination).

We have already said that Yaakov is pure and holy by his own merit, just that the sins come from outside to Yaakov, from the evil inclination, and therefore he gives the sins to Esav his brother...

The sins of Israel are not inherent, only from the outside do they come, i.e., from the evil inclination, and something that comes from the outside – it is possible to send away from him. (ibid.)

Now we come to the end of the parsha: "Do not perform the practice of the land of Egypt in which you dwelled." The Egyptian self is attached to prostitution and everything that is despised, and therefore they are naturally drawn to prostitution and despicable actions. Israel, however, their self is faithful, holy and separate from all illicit relationships, as it says: "The tribes of Y-H, a testimony for Israel." G-d testified with His name that they are the sons of their fathers ... Thus, Israel is the opposite of Egypt; the Egyptians are attached to prostitution, whereas Israel is separated from nakedness and adultery. (Maharal Gevurot Hashem Chapter 4)

Eretz Yisrael is the "Sanctuary of Hashem," the land that is "before Hashem." The Ramban writes at the end of the parsha: "The land that is Hashem's respected estate will disgorge anyone who contaminates it, and will not suffer idol worshipers and illicit relations." (He writes many beautiful things there about the uniqueness of Eretz Yisrael).

The Maharal writes (Gevurot Hashem chapter 8):

The land that Hashem gave to Avraham is a holy land that is different from the rest of the earth. Therefore, when Hashem promised about giving [it], [Avraham] wanted to know through what merit would they inherit the holy land. (This is what Avraham asked "By what shall I know that I am to inherit it" – inheritance, implying through a natural relationship). [G-d] answered him that on this account they will inherit the land, in the merit of atonement. As you understand the deeper meaning of the atonement that Hashem gave to Israel, which indicates that Israel are holy in their essence, separate from any lowliness. If it were not for this, then when they would add to the lowliness, atonement would be impossible for them. Now that they inherently are separate from any lowliness, they are worthy of atonement, since sin is not associated with them, and their inherent self is without sin, and therefore they are worthy of atonement ... just as the holy land does not tolerate any sin due to its holiness, as it says: "Let not the land disgorge you, etc.'' Therefore, the land relates to Israel in this matter, because the land is holy in its virtue that is separated from lowliness and repugnance, and so are Israel...

It is similar to someone who is inherently pure and handsome, so if he were to become dirty by mud – he immediately reverts to his purity because he himself is pure. However, someone who is polluted and loathed, the dirt never leaves him, for dirt is just added on to dirt. Therefore, in this merit they will inherit the holy land, because according to the appropriateness – man has a place. Thus, when Hashem gave the holy land to Israel, certainly it was because they were worthy of it. So, too, to each and every nation He gave a land according to whom they are, and everything has a place according to its nature and worthiness. Thus, according to the worthiness of Israel who have a separate holy virtue – they also have a holy land. This is the outcome of the virtue that is evident on Yom Kippur: the connection to Eretz Yisrael on the one hand, and, on the other hand the disgorgement from it for sins like illicit relationships, even though they are not dependant on the ground.

Striking a Balance

by HaRav Zalman Baruch Melamed
Rosh HaYeshiva, Beit El

The Zeal of Youth
"And God spoke to Moshe after the death of the two sons of Aharon in front of God..." Nadav and Avihu the sons of Aharon died specifically because of their desire to be too "close" to God; they symbolize the energies of youth, a younger generation motivated by raw, idealistic emotions. Occasionally, this energy manifests itself in the form of excessive haste not in keeping with the path of Torah.

Our sages teach us that Pinchas - who zealously killed Cozbi and Zimri for their illicit and threatening intimacy - was in fact a reincarnation of Nadav and Avihu. Similarly, Eliyahu the Prophet - we are taught - was also a reincarnation of Pinchas. In both the lives of Pinchas and Eliyahu, we find traces of pure energy, an emotion that prompts the people in question to accomplish "holy" tasks; such emotion, however, is not always balanced by a necessary dose of caution and cool-headedness.

Torah
In contrast, Moshe Rabeinu represents Torah, the orientation of "the elders" who, though they lack the enthusiasm of youth, behave calmly and cautiously, adhering to the Torah's guidance. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook [of blessed memory] cites sources indicating that both Moshe and Eliyahu are two key figures who in the future will announce the redemption of the Jewish people. According to Rav Kook, redemption will stem from a combination of wisdom deriving from age and learning - tempered by the enthusiasm of youth. Only a holistic approach that encompasses the two orientations - also taking into account the proper actions as indicated by Torah - will bring the redemption.

Channeling, not Suppressing
Rashi teaches that the meaning of the mitzvah, "You shall be holy" is: "Separate yourselves from sexual immorality". The commentary "Ohr Hachayim" explains that the inclination of sexual immorality (Yetzer d'Arayot) is entrenched in human nature, and is thus nearly impossible to overcome. If so, from where are we to garner the power to fulfill the mitzvah of "You shall be holy?" The response to this question, says the Ohr HaChayim, lies in the second half of the verse, "Because I, your God, am holy..." Since the Children of Israel are truly children of God, they possess a natural cleaving to Divine holiness.

There is no need to suppress the Yetzer d'Arayot. The Jewish person is expected to achieve spiritual perfection, and such perfection accomodates the Yetzer d'Arayot. Looked at this way, the prescription, "You shall be holy" is really a commandment to steer the inclination towards holiness and purity in a healthy direction. When we successfully do this, Rav Kook notes, we transform the Yetzer d'Arayot from a private, egoistic inclination to a universal inclination directed at the perpetuation of mankind and the furthering of God's plan for the world.

This observation - that we need not and should not suppress this inclination - has a calming effect; man realizes that he need not give up completely on his yearnings and drives. To be sure, it seems at times that it is easier to suppress the yetzer rather than to redirect it, since channeling this yetzer carries with it the possibility of failure and sin. However, suppressing the Yetzer d'Arayot is liable to produce a "boomerang effect" in which we confront the unruly, unhealthy bursting forth of the yetzer, unbridled by the guidance of Torah.

Our sages teach that after the first exile, Ezrah the prophet nullified the human inclination towards idolatry. At the time, he also tried to negate the Yetzer d'Arayot, but stopped short of doing so once he realized that it would lead to a situation in which there would be no chicken eggs in the entirety of the Land of Israel, as a result of the newly-celibate lifestyle of roosters and chickens!
From this observation, we can learn that the key to the redemption lies in the intensification of the Yetzer d'Arayot. It is possible that the way of overcoming this inclination is a long road, fraught with all sorts of personal challenges and mistakes. Yet, at the forefront of a person's thoughts at all times must be the realization that he is continuing down the path until complete victory over this yetzer.

We must overcome this yetzer in the same manner as we would overcome the tendency towards greed. Only when a person cultivates a sense of revulsion for money that is not his own, and a sense that money that is not rightfully his is a burden on him that will just not let him rest - is he considered to have overcome his greed. [Merchants in the marketplace know that there are people out there whom they can sell to on credit, since they know that the respective consciences of these people will not allow them to sleep at nights until they pay their debts.

A person must realize that each time he succeeds in a given struggle with the Yetzer d'Arayot, like the pushing off of a lewd thought or the like, not only has he refrained from committing a transgression, he has even performed a great mitzvah! Our sages teach that someone who remains idle and does not commit a sin, is considered by the Torah as if he in fact performed a positive commandment. This worldview generates a new sense of purpose to those who truly wish to vanquish this yetzer. The reason it is considered a mitzvah is that it requires an active struggle and an ability to draw upon one's spiritual powers.

Our sages teach that "according to the pain is the reward." Thus, one who exerts energies in these spiritual battles, and one who feels pain as a result of this exertion, receives great reward. We certainly do not serve God on condition of receiving reward, but the "reward" in this instance is the obtaining of new powers to aid in our service of God...

Holy and Separate

by HaRav Shaul Yisraeli, ZT"L
"You shall be holy" (Vayikra 19:2) – you shall separate yourselves (Sifra, Kedoshim 1). Sanctity requires separation; it does not come from nature itself. This goal is the essence of Judaism. Our aspiration to reach the greatest heights does not include an outlook of ignoring reality and does not cover up that which exists. Rather, we are to try to "uproot the weeds" that are damaging before the time comes to "plant the saplings of blessing."

Israel said "We will do and hear" and also experienced the mountain hung over their heads. There is no contradiction between the two. Both powers exist in man: the natural good side with special inborn qualities; and the side which is corrupt and caustic. Along with the good action that Israel performed (accepting the Torah enthusiastically), they also needed to accept upon themselves the element of "stay away from evil," the uprooting of the weeds. They could not ignore them or cover them up but had to hang a mountain above them to force them to do that which was incumbent upon them. Only when that was done was it possible for the positive action of saying "We will do and hear" to have its true positive impact.

Therefore, every generation must reaccept the Torah. For that reason every year there must be a reacceptance of the Torah, and every day it should be to one as new.

The refinement of one’s personal nature must come through man, and doing so for himself brings along an improvement in all of nature. All the world, as we know it, depends upon man – it is elevated when man elevates himself, and it is lowered when man lowers himself. "If not for My covenant, day and night, the rules of the heavens and the earth I would not have installed" (Yirmiya 33:25). If you do not accept the Torah, the corruption of nature will multiply and magnify, and you will be "buried alive" from a moral perspective.

We now also understand the statement of the mishna in Kiddushin (4:14): "Neither poverty nor affluence is a result of one’s profession; rather everything depends on one’s merits." This is difficult, asks Tosafot (Kiddushin 82a), as the gemara (Moed Katan 28a) says that children, life, and livelihood are not based on merit but based on mazal (predetermined fate). On the other hand, there is no mazal for Israel (Shabbat 156a).

The explanation is that mazal is a combination of natural causes. However, there is also a possibility of going beyond natural factors, and this happens if one realizes that riches and poverty do not come from one’s profession. While things such as children, life, and sustenance depend on mazal, merit can change the mazal. This is because when one fixes nature, then mazal, which is a foundation of "blind nature" within the world, is also changed and fixed.

Judaism and Sexuality

by Rabbi Dov Berl Wein

Although the entire gamut of Torah commandments is discussed in this week's Torah reading, nevertheless it is obvious that the major emphasis is on the subject of sexual morality. It is almost impossible to even discuss this subject in the current climate of politically correct Western liberalism, which justifies any type of human behavior in this area and where even discussing this situation brings upon one the approbation of being bigoted and intolerant. Yet in the long run of human history the current acceptance of unrestricted sexual freedom has had many precedents. The power of the sexual drive in human beings is not a recent phenomenon. Psychiatrists and psychologists all recognize the sexual drive as being one of the primary physical wants and drives of all human behavior. The Torah certainly recognized the primacy of this physical drive in our lives. In fact, the Torah therefore devoted much detail and instruction in this matter in order to achieve a balanced and positive channeling of his drive. For it is the basic drive that preserves human continuity and generational existence. The Talmud points out to us that without the existence of this drive in nature generally no hen would lay an egg and life as we know it would disappear. Judaism therefore never denied or even denigrated the necessary existence of the sexual drive in nature. It never preached celibacy; on the contrary it always promoted the concept of marriage and physical union between spouses. What it did oppose, and still opposes is the wanton "everything goes" attitude toward sexual behavior. Eventually all of society pays a heavy price for unrestricted sexual behavior.

The Torah therefore speaks to us in terms of being kedoshim. This word is usually translated and used as a term for holiness. This is undoubtedly correct. But like most Hebrew words the word also conveys a different and perhaps more subtle meaning to it. It also means "dedicated." In fact, one can say that the primary thrust of Judaism is that one should live a life dedicated to service of God and of man with vision and appreciation of the true meaning of life and its gifts. Being dedicated in terms of Jewish life means valuing the concept of family, the necessity of continuity of generations and the primacy of proper behavior regarding others particularly and in society generally. It is the dedication to these goals that translates itself into the idea of holiness. The lack of any code of sexual morality makes any such dedication impossible. Unfortunately we live in an age where holiness is at best a curiosity and certainly not the goal of most people. But the Torah in its eternal vision demands from us holiness in all ages and societies. The ancient classical world of Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, mighty as these empires were, nevertheless disappeared because of their inability to maintain a society based on paganism and sexual freedom. No high sounding slogans about tolerance and acceptance of everything will eventually save Western society from such a fate as well. The Torah cautioned us regarding this inevitable rule of human society and we are therefore bidden to maintain the traditional standards of Jewish behavior in this matter no matter what.