Cross-Currents Emanuel Feldman

Mercedes recently ran a full page ad in The New York Times. It contained only six words. At the top were two words: More Power.

Four inches below that were two more words: More Comfort.
And finally, four inches below that, the last two words: More Envy.
One can appreciate the advantages of driving a car with more power and with more comfort.

But what does envy have to do with driving a car?
Furthermore, the ad seemed logically skewed. Power and comfort are qualities we can possess.

Envy, on the other hand, is not something we possess; it is something others will feel toward us if we own this car.
I was quietly studying chapter 1 of the prophet Isaiah when from the holy text there leaped headlines from the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Maariv, Yediot, as well as the major newspapers of the West: Your leaders have become plunderers, associates of thieves, lovers of bribery, pursuers of payoffs (1:23)
The rest of the chapter, as they say, was commentary: How has she become like a harlot, the city of faithfulness. Once it was filled with justice and righteousness, but now murderers
One often turns to the Bible for solace and comfort, but in this instance, the only consolation was in the knowledge that we today did not invent corruption.

Greed and selfishness are part of the human condition. This is precisely one of the major purposes of Judaism: to help man transcend his natural inclinations and to become a mentsch and not remain an animal.
That this is an ongoing struggle is evident from the endless string of scandals and sheer incompetence in Israeli public life.

When 85% of the Israeli public believes its government is corrupt, it is time to ask: Have we become just another Levantine state on the shores of the Mediterranean, whose officials are always on the take, and where bribery and cronyism are an accepted way of life? Does Israel now embody the fear of the prophets that some day we would be truly become kechol haGoyim, like all the nations, instead of an ohr laGoyim, a light to the nations ?
Adam and Eve in the Garden, and the misadventures of Rep Mark Foley and other public figures: what do they have in common?

What they have in common is man s total uwillingness to take responsibility for his own actions, and his total willingness to blame someone else. Adam violates Gods edict about eating from the forbidden tree. God confronts him.

What does Adam do? He blames his problem Eve: The woman you gave me talked me into it.
God confronts Eve.

What does she do? The serpent persuaded me to do it. She is not responsible.

Her problem, called the serpent, made her do it.
Adam and Eve could be in today s headlines. All that is missing from their story is today s crocodile-tearful public apology and the retreat to a rehabilitation center, after which they would be re-admitted to their Paradise.

But there was as yet no public, and God had somehow forgotten to create rehab centers in the first seven days. Unfortunately for them, the only public they could address God Himself is singularly unimpressed with their excuses . He gives them appropriate rehabilitation: they are permanently banished from the Garden.

We each have our own memory highlights of the recently concluded Days of Awe: the Shofar of Rosh Hashana; the magnificent symphony of that day s Musaf Amida; penetrating prayers like Who shall live and who shall die, and Cast us not off at old age ; the emotional Neila service that climaxes Yom Kippur. One does not have to be particularly religious to be moved by one or another aspect of these truly holy days.
In the Shul I attend here in Jerusalem, something occurred at the end of Yom Kippur day that was memorable.

Paradoxically, this was not because of the words we uttered, but the words we did not utter.
Somehow, the Neila service had ended a bit earlier than scheduled. We recited the climactic Confession of Faith that marks the end of the day: the Shema Yisrael, followed by Baruch shem kevod/May His glorious Name be blessed for eternity, followed by the seven-fold affirmation that God, He is the Lord.

Normally, the Shofar is sounded at this point, which, according to tradition, marks the return of the Divine Presence to its celestial abode. But it was too early. It was only 5:38, and the Shofar could not be sounded until it was fully dark at 5:48.

Ten minutes to go.
I was holding up fairly well under the pressures of this war until four things occurred. First: e-mails and calls from family and friends in the US who wanted to know how we were holding up.

Having been through Israel s wars while living both here and in America, I know from experience that the worries and concerns from far away are far more intense than they are here in Israel, even when we are under fire.
In any case, I was doing fine until those calls began coming in. Then I began to worry, to take my pulse and ask myself: How am I doing under all this tension?

Then something else happened. On the fourth day of the war our apartment building s house committee chairman knocked on my door wanting to know if we had anything of value in the air-raid shelter, since they were cleaning it up and installing plumbing.
One of our grandchildren attends a summer day camp for six- and seven-year-olds in Jerusalem.

A few days ago the group was scheduled to spend the entire morning at the beach. They waited expectantly for the bus, but before it arrived the rabbi of the school that was sponsoring the day camp called all the children together.
All of you know, he said, that there is a war going on, and many boys and girls of your age who live in cities like Haifa and Safed have had to leave their homes and go and live in other places to be safe.

These children had to leave their toys and their books and their favorite games behind. I am thinking that maybe today we should do something special for them. What do you think we might be able to do?

After Corporal Gilad Shalit was taken captive, a small notice appeared in our Jerusalem synagogue. Above Shalit s Hebrew name, Gilad ben Aviva, was a hand lettered request to recite Psalms and to pray for his safe return. When young Eliyahu Asheri was kidnapped a few days later, his name, Eliyahu Pinchas ben Miriam, was added to the notice.

Then came the tragic news that Asheri had been murdered by his captors. The country was saddened and once again stunned by this latest evidence of the depravity of our enemies. When I walked into Shul the next day, the sign was still there, but the name Eliyahu Pinchas ben Miriam had been crossed out with two brisk, horizontal pen strokes.

I was taken aback. I turned to a fellow worshiper and said, I realize the boy is gone, but how could anyone do this kind of thing to strike through his name? Isn t that terribly insensitive?

Why would anyone do that?
The man shrugged his shoulders. You re right.

It is kind of grotesque. But listen, the kid is dead. Those are the facts.

What can you do? That s how it is.
Some computers crash, but only figuratively.

My laptop crashed last week, but literally. Entangled in its own wires, it crashed to the floor with a sickening thud. The repairman told me it would take five days for it to be repaired.

Five days without a computer! How will I manage? Granted, one can write by hand or on a typewriter ( Daddy, what s a typewriter?

), but five days without email. All those hordes of people who must get in touch with me how will they reach me now? And all those whom I must contact how will I reach them?

I don t even have their phone numbers. And my daily electronic New York Times and Jerusalem Post will I now be forced actually to read a newspaper or listen to radio news?
Sadnesss consumed me on the first day.

Occasionally I found myself staring at the blank, empty space where the laptop had once stood. It was as if a good friend had abandoned me. Someone who saw my distress offered to say a mi shebeirach [prayer for the sick] in shul for the laptop, but after due consideration I turned it down.

( Better a mi shebeirach, he chuckled, than a kel Molei [prayer for the dead] He thought it was funny, but only one of us laughed.)
A funny thing happened on the way to the millennium. Nomenclature that was once limited to the Orthodox and dismissed as being parochial has gradually become de rigueur among non-Orthodox groups.

One now finds non-Orthodox kollelim, day schools, Beit Midrash programs, havruta study, hevra kadisha groups, a new stress on rituals and mitzvot, even renewed interest in the long-derided concept of mikve.
And major American federations, which once opposed day schools and yeshivot as being separatist and antiquated, have become supportive. The unfashionable Orthodox have become quite modish.

This should come as no surprise. It is another bit of evidence that the demographics, fertility and Jewish education of Orthodox Jews are propelling them toward an influential position within the Jewish community evidence that is now clearly buttressed by the American Jewish Committee s newly-issued study of American Jewry.
If Rip Van Winkle were a Jew, he would awaken today in amazement, for the face of American Orthodoxy, particularly in Jewish communities outside the major metropolitan areas, has changed radically in less than two generations.

Quoted from the of Mon, 3/6/06, on the issue now roiling the Conservative movement concerning homosexuality:

Many students at the [Conservative Jewish Theological] seminary say they find the gay ban offensive and would welcome a change, said Daniel Klein, a rabbinical student who helps lead Keshet, a gay rights group on campus. It s part of the tradition to change, so we re entirely within tradition, he said. Mr.

Klein said that even if the law committee did not lift the ban this week, change would come eventually.
This loose thinking, from a future rabbi, boggles the thinking mind, and offers a fascinating insight into the thought processes of Conservative Judaism. 1) It is part of the tradition to change; 2) Thus, no change can ever be outside the tradition.

Which raises an interesting question: Since it is part of the tradition to change, why not permit bestialiy, or pedophilia, or theft, or adultery? These should all be permissible, since they are changes, and it is part of the tradition to change. (And since they are huge changes, they should be very much within the tradition ) The fact that these are expressly forbidden in the Torah should not be an impediment.

As Prof. Dorff will show in his paper to be presented to the Conservative meeting this week even clear prohibitions like those against homosexuality can be dealt with by sophistry, intellectual gymnastics and halakhic sleight of hand. So pedophilia or adultery should pose no problem.

Prof. Neil Gilman of the Seminary shocked everyone several months ago when he declared that once and for all the Conservative movement should stop claiming it is bound to halakha. He was right .

The Conservative movement has finally severed all connections with Jewish tradition and all pretense of being bound by halakha. Everything goes.
It has been noted in the past, but the Jerusalem Post reported last week that the incidence of haredi volunteerism in Israel is extremely high, according to Israel s Central Bureau of Statistics.

Among Israelis who do volunteer work, haredim form the highest percentage of volunteers in the entire country: 36%. The next highest group are religious Israelis datiim who are not haredim, with 27%, followed by mesoratim/traditionally oriented Jews, with 14%. Thus, the religious community constitutes a far higher percentage even without the traditional Jews of volunteerism than any other sector of the Israeli population.

What is most striking is that the datiim apparently do twice as much volunteer work as do the secularists, and haredim almost three times as much as the secularists.
Knowledgable Israelis greeted these latest stats with a yawn. It is very old hat, and not at all surprising.

After all, we already know that the Orthodox give away a far greater portion of their income to charity than does any other part of the population, and that they open up their homes to guests on a regular basis , far beyond the norms of ordinary hospitality. To volunteer to help communal causes is merely another manifestation of this, and comes very naturally.
But once again this statistic turns on its head the canard about Orthodox self-centeredness, its exclusionary tendencies, its lack of concern for the other and for the community.

Parasites is the insult-du-jour that is hurled at haredim. And it makes one wonder about the self-proclaimed tolerance, love for humanity, open-mindedness, and communal responsibility on which the secular, benign, non-parasitic community prides itself.
An obvious question: Why is it that religious Jews form such a high proportion among the ranks of the volunteers?

Obvious answer: If in fact volunteerism is a manifestation of selflessness and concern for the other, could it be that the religious life of Torah inherently points a person away from himself and toward the other? Could it be that the constant reminders and awareness of God impact upon a person s consciousness and make him/her aware that he is not the center of the universe around whom all else revolves? And certainly regular prayer to the Other imprints upon the soul the fact that there is an Other above me, and an other beside me.

Jack Abramoff emerges from the courtroom wearing a black fedora, and instantly the media pounce on the fact that he is an Orthodox Jew. If he were a Roman Catholic layman, would it matter that he is a lobbyist of questionable ethical standards? If he were a Lutheran?

A Baptist? Not at all. But he is Orthodox, and that is all that matters to columnists, editorialists and reporters.

Is this a manifestation of latent anti-Semitism? Perhaps there is an element of this involved, but we must also not lose sight of some mitigating factors. One of these is that out there in the world there is a great curiosity about Orthodox Judaism.

Orthodoxy has always been shrouded in some sort of mystique, and was largely unknown. It is only recently that it has entered the American religious mainstream as a full-fledged participant. The natural result is that there is great interest in it, and a spotlight is cast upon its adherents especially those who wander from the straight and narrow.

In a way, this is a kind of tribute to Orthodoxy. It is a recognition that Orthodoxy has a higher standard, and anyone who would stand under its umbrella is held I think rightfully to this higher standard. Were Abramoff a Conservative or Reform Jew, his religious affiliation would be of little interest.

It is his Orthodoxy that makes him worthy of note.
Is this unfair? Perhaps so.

But be mindful of one of the major teachings of Judaism, the concept of Hillul haShem, Desecration of the Name. This means that every Jew is responsible that the good Name of the God of Israel be preserved; he or she is bidden to behave in such a way that the good Name of God which he represents not be sullied, and that, on the contrary, it be sanctified. The more pious the Jew, the greater his responsibility in this regard.

Those who wear the mantle of God, who are known as pious and God fearing, are held to a higher standard than those who disclaim any attachment to God or Torah. Any misbehavior on their part casts a shadow not only on them personally, but also on the Name of God to Whose teachings they claim fealty. Hillul haShem is one of the great and terrible transgressions within Judaism, just as its mirror image Kiddush haShem, Sanctification of the Name of God is one of the great positive mitzvot of Judaism.

In today s world, like it or not, it is the Orthodox who are considered to be the carriers of Jewish piety and Godliness, and in our all too mortal hands lies the potential of either desecration or sanctification of His Name. It may be unfair, but those are the unalterable, immutable facts of Jewish religious life.
Yes, Rev.

Pat Robertson has apologized, but one question remains: why were Israeli officials so incensed at him for suggesting that Sharon has been punished because he willingly surrendered part of the Holy land to its enemies. Granted, the timing of his statement was unfortunate, but does that justify Israel s angry response to cut off its agreement with him to help build a Christian center in the Galil?
It is not that I like the idea of Israel aiding and abetting Christian projects that do nothing to strengthen Jewish heritage, and have the potential of doing just the reverse.

Even if such projects bring in millions of Christian tourists, one wonders if the spiritual price we ultimately pay is worth it even though the evangelicals are our best friends today.
But I am puzzled by the intensity of Israel s reaction to this one statement. Is it that Robertson claims to have entr e into the mind of God?

I happen to agree that no mortal should claim knowledge of why the Immortal One does this or does not do that but surely this is not the first time that Robertson has said such things. Any good evangelical thinks this way. Nor is he alone.

Many Israeli rabbis have donned the mantle of omniscience as well, ascribing various tragedies to lack of Jewish observance. This kind of presumptuousness on Robertson s part does not of itself warrant the rage of the Israeli government. There must be more to it.

Government officials, bureaucrats, the media, the doctors everyone has been urging us to pray for the welfare of PM Sharon. And so , as rarely before, the Land is alive with the sound of prayer.
To whom is all this praying directed?

Prayer, by definition, presupposes that the words are directed to someone, and that someone hears the prayer. That Someone is, of course, God. The corollary assumptions are that a) God exists; b) He listens to prayer; and c) that He is all-powerful and can step in and perform His will when all human resources seem not to be working.

If He so chooses he can perform miracles; only He can make the PM well.
Does this outpouring of prayer reflect a population that is latently a religious one? Does all this turning to God suggest a sub-surface piety among our citizenry?

Or is it simply a sign of desperation? For no one can deny that, universally, the idea of prayer seems to surface only when things are bad. When things are going well, when there are no worries or concerns, turning to God is not on our agenda.

Prayer is the twin of crisis, the brother of desperation. When all else fails, when we have exhausted all earthly means of help, then but not usually before then we pray. Ani rishon, va-ani acharon, says Isaiah: I am the first, and I am the last (44:6).

Which, beyond its plain sense that God is eternal and infinite, also suggests that when things are bad, God is the first to be turned to, and when things are good, He is the last to be turned to.
One suspects that Israelis even those who would not describe themselves as dati are far more religious than they let on. Piety, religion, outreach to Gd, are not very fashionable, so by and large these qualities do not surface in daily life.

But somehow, when the need arises, Israelis of all backgrounds are able to reach inward and find resources that stem from deeply religious wellsprings.
So the government has been intruding into our private lives by listening in to our telephones and our emails. The howls of protest are inevitable, but we need to remember that this transcends the legal issue of constitutional rights of privacy.

We are at war and with an enemy that will destroy us if we do not defend ourselves by every possible means. I, for one, am willing to give up some of my liberties temporarily so that all of my liberties in this blessed land are not destroyed permanently.
The current flap about eavesdropping bears in it a lesson for me.

As believing Jews, we know that nothing is private or hidden from the One Above. Everything we do is seen, heard, and recorded. Kol ma- asecha basefer nichtavim, say the Sages in Avot II:1.

All of your deeds are recorded in a Book. And not only deeds: words as well. There are no conversations and no communications that are hidden from the One Above.

Ayin ro-ah, ozen shoma- at, says that same Mishnah. An Eye sees, and an Ear hears .
How different our lives would be if we took that seriously.

An Ear hears: if we really believed that, the heretofore impregnable fortresses of gossip, slander, and character-assassination would soon crumble. It would exponentially increase the incidence of honest speech and radically reduce truth-stretching and outright lying. And an Eye sees: the conviction that Someone is looking at our public and private behavior could make righteous tzadikkim of us all .

The very concept of being listened to and observed via a transcendental sound camera surely concentrates the mind.
That we continue to talk and behave as if no one is listening or observing us is a commentary on the true state of our belief in a personal Gd.
My recent post about Israeli secularists being urged to play Monopoly and watch video in order to make their Yom Kippur fasting more tolerable created some interesting discussion.

In connection with that, I just came across the following item, written in 1987 by Meron Beneviste ( who was once deputy mayor of Jerusalem). The quote is taken verbatim from the journal SOCIETY, published by Rutgers University ( Nov./Dec.

2005, 43:1) pp.23-24.
We would observe Yom Kippur by loading quantities of food onto a raft and swimming out with it to an offshore islet in the Mediterranean, and there we would while away the whole day feasting.

It was a flagrant demonstration of our rejection of religious and Diaspora values.
Question for discussion: which do you think is preferred in the eys of G-d the Beneviste maneuver, or the Monopoly/video maneuver?
Just before Yom Kippur, a popular Jerusalem shopping mall published a glossy magazine supplement advertising its latest glitzy fashion items, many of which are beyond modesty.

In the centerfold of the magazine is a Hebrew article entitled , How To Make It Through the Fast Day. Among the suggestions are the usual erev Yom Kippur precautions: lots of water, no caffeine, many carbohydrates, etc., etc.

Then comes the kicker, a sub-section called, Additional Tips For An Easy Fast. (Free Hebrew lesson: the word for tips is tippim.) It is possible, says the article, to have a pleasant Yom Kippur even without eating.

Among the best ways to take your mind off food is to meet with friends and family; read light books; play enjoyable games like Monopoly, and watch some video. (It goes without saying that no mention is made of such ideas as repentance, prayer, tzedakah, books of life and death or, God forbid, God.
My first reaction was one of shock and insult.

If they don t want to observe Yom Kippur, that is their problem. But why observe and desecrate at the same time? Does God really desire their fasting under such circumstances?

Isaiah s angry words (I:12) came to mind: Mi bikesh zot miyedchem remot chatzerai Who asks this of you, to trample on my precincts? It would be better if you ate all day to your heart s content rather than to refrain from food without a thought of the larger issues that Yom Kippur represents.
But then a calmer reaction forced its way to the surface.

Perhaps this is not entirely negative. At least, the memory of Yom Kippur is still alive in the hearts of Israelis, even the totally secularized ones. True, this makes a mockery of the sanctity of the holiest day of the year, but at the very least, they are maintaining something of Jewish tradition, even if they are doing it improperly.

These people are not, after all, deliberately desecrating Yom Kippur. They know no better, and this is how they were raised and taught. Perhaps, in paraphrase of that old Chasidic tale, one can say of them that even while they play Monopoly on Yom Kippur, they still fast on that holy day.

In fact, maybe this is an indictment of the inability of observant Jews to reach out and explain Jewish values to those who have been deprived of them.
From a Jerusalem newspaper: Although here and there one still sees the orange ribbons that signified opposition to the disengagement, they have by and large disappeared from the Israeli scene.
What shall I do with my orange ribbon?

It adorned the corners of my car,
waved defiantly in the wind throughout Jerusalem,
and now it is useless.
but the people did not rally to its side.
What will become of my orange ribbon?

has taken place.
the ribbon represents hope against impossible odds,
Shall I retain it on my car,
in an act that defies the reality that has set in?
It is faded now, my lovely orange ribbon,
once bright with hope and anticipation.

Shall I tack it onto the wall of my room,
that bright little ribbons could change the course of events?
I always knew that Israeli drivers were deranged, second only in madness to the Italians, so what happened did not shock me. What did shock me was the aftermath.

I was driving along a Jerusalem road when a car appeared on a small side street. The driver saw me, and I fully expected him to wait until I passed. But he was impatient.

He darted out in full throttle, made a screeching turn directly in front of me, and sped down the road. Had I not swerved and slammed on my brakes he would have struck my car.
I was furious.

I drove behind him, honking my horn repeatedly just to let him know that he was a fool. These demented Israeli drivers, I muttered to myself, always in a hurry, filled with chutzpah, oblivious to the dangers they pose to everyone around them. This country is filled with driving schools and no one knows how to drive.

It did not help alleviate my road rage when I noticed that his car was flying a blue ribbon supporting the withdrawal while I am a staunch man of orange. I also noticed that he was not wearing a kippah. Aha!

This madman was a reckless secular supporter of the Gaza withdrawal. Wait until he stops at the next light, I ll give him a good tongue lashing.
Just over one hour ago, fully mindful of the negative reactions that my has provoked, I approached an elderly neighbor of mine here in Jerusalem.

This man is a survivor of Auschwitz who lost his entire family there. I asked him if he was aware of the Gush Katif children who had appeared with the jude nscribed on a yellow star. Of course, he replied.

I then asked him the following: As a survivor yourself of such horrors, what do you think of this action by the youngsters? Were you offended? Do you think it was a cheap stunt?

These were his exact words, translated from the Hebrew:
Offended? Cheap stunt? Definitely not.

I m glad they did what they did. Of course, I am not saying that this is a Holocaust, not at all obviously not but the world needs to know that there are real parallels here to the real Holocaust. What these kids did was very very good.

. (Name and address supplied upon request.)
This sentiment has been echoed by other Holocaust survivors whom I know.

Not only did they not feel that this was a trivialization of the great tragedy, and not only did they not feel offended; they applauded it, because they felt that the message of Holocaust echoes needs to be broadcast far and wide. I do not think that we need be more sensitive-than-thou to Holocaust references than are Holocaust survivors themselves . (Granted, there well may be other survivors who were offended, but at the very least I do have some credible support on which I based my comments.

)
I pray that my conversation with this man will serve to temper some of the indignation engendered by my essay. With his statement I coul rest my case. But I want to add something.

When Israeli soldiers entered a barricaded room in Gush Katif, out marched a group of weeping children. Their hands were held up, and each one was wearing the yellow star with the word jude in Germanic characters emblazoned upon it. Do such tactics trivialize the real Holocaust?

Some say so. After all, as tragic as these evictions are, these Jews are being expelled not by Nazis who wish to destroy them, but by fellow Jews who, for the most part, have tried to display gentleness and sympathy.
Nevertheless, in the air there lingers a faint Holocaust aroma: forced evacuations; barriers of barbed wire; people forbidden to enter the area; notices from the government ordering residents to pack their belongings and be ready to leave their homes by a date certain, and threatening that those not leaving voluntarily will be forcibly evicted and will lose their compensation benefits; Jews barricading themselves in synagogues while other Jews forcibly pull them out.

Synagogues and yeshivot are now dark, cemeteries are uprooted, thousands of Jewish refugees are bussed into the heartland not knowing where they will spend the next night, or what their future holds, and all the while an enemy sworn to destroy Israel proclaims victory and moves into the abandoned land. To be sure, not a Holocaust, but certainly redolent of it.
[By the way, did not secular Zionism promise us that if we only had our own land, such things could not occur?

Was not this Jewish land supposed to put an end to forced exile? And through it all, these same secular Zionists, those whose religion consists only of fealty to the land, look with equanimity and some even with satisfaction as their religion is dismantled.]
Could anyone have missed the searing pain in one verse of last Shabbat s Torah reading?

In it, the Children of Israel are promised that the newly entered Land will be ready for their immediate use, with cities which you did not build hewed out wells that you did not hew, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant. . .

. (Dt. 6:10-11).

Today s Israeli leadership has turned the Torah on its face and has knowingly invited our mortal enemies to enter the Land and inherit vineyards and olive trees they did not plant all in the name of a dubious peace. The prophet Zephaniah s words ring clearly in our ears: ki Azah azuvah tihyeh/for Gaza will become forsaken. .

. . (2:4)
During this pre-Tisha B Av week, my wife casually mentioned something to me about this period of national mourning.

What she said struck me as having relevance for contemporary Jews, and I suggested she write it down.
Just this week I was on a plane landing in New York City, and as I looked out my window at the gaping hole in the skyline where the Twin Towers once stood, an inchoate melacholy enveloped me.
This was not a new sensation for me.

As a native New Yorker, I have always been fascinated by the elemental strength and grace of her towering skyscrapers. But ever since 9/11, my heart - like that of millions of others aches whenever I see pictures of Manhattan, and I find myself searching the pictures for those lost Towers. And this almost irrational reaction is from someone who left New York before the Towers were built, and who never even saw them.

Israel is these days experiencing a major crisis concerning its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Below are some impressionistic notes from the field.
The streets of Jerusalem are ablaze with the color orange which has become a potent symbol of solidarity with the Jews scheduled for expulsion from Gaza.

Strips of orange are cropping up everywhere: On apartment porches, on children s bookbags, on briefcases, in wrist bracelets. Orange ribbons are festooned on automobiles, on flagpoles, on tree branches, in gardens a bumper crop. One can sense a gradual turning in public opinion against the proposed eviction and withdrawal.

Even the recent polls although not always to be trusted show a clear swing away from governmental policy. Another very powerful sign is also widespread: bumper stickers reading, Yehudi lo megaresh Yehudi A Jew does not drive out another Jew.
No one seems to understand what Sharon has in mind.

We hope Sharon does. One might have expected this of a Peres or of one of the left-wing doves. But what caused Arik Sharon this old soldier who was the hero of the settlers, who encouraged them to build and develop barren lands to turn his back on his most passionate supporters?

In the election for Prime Minister, Sharon overwhelmingly thrashed Amram Mitzna who had proposed this kind of withdrawal. For Sharon now to adopt the rejected plan of his opponent boggles the mind. His former supporters are more than puzzled and disappointed; they feel betrayed.

No one can figure out what grand strategic purpose is being met by this one-sided retreat. Israel receives nothing in return except winks and nods and the Arabs interpret it as yet another victory for terror. The frustration is deepened by the fact that many leading military people consider Gaza and its 25-mile coastline to be of immense strategic value.

Arab pledges of quiet and peace are risible. Even now, there are daily killings and rocket attacks, and daily our government mumbles things about not withdrawing under fire. The inmates have taken over the asylum, and they do not deign to explain their position.

Instead, those opposed to the withdrawal are stigmatized for incitement. Democratic norms are falling by the wayside in order to bulldoze this program through.
A funny thing happened on the way to writing this blog.

During Pesach, two major funerals took place here in Israel. One was for Ezer Weizman, former president of Israel; the other, for Rav Shelomo Wolbe, the world recognized dean of today s Musar movement.
Because they went to their eternal reward at about the same time, it seemed to me appropriate to say something about these two contrasting men.

I sat down yesterday to write a few words about the flamboyant Weizman and the quiet R. Wolbe. I did a rough first draft, and then decided to sleep on it and to do the final draft today.

In our last memorandum, we shared with you the groundbeaking decisions of our innovative SHICR halakhic experts. You may recall that, based on previously overlooked Biblical concerns about guarding one s health, we were able to free many 21st century individuals from the intolerable burdens of the 15th century Shulchan Arukh. Thus, we made it halakhically possible for a woman to attend mikveh in her own bathtub should the weather be inclement; for a man to go to his business on Shabbat if absenting himself might result in economic difficulties; for Yom Kippur fasting to be limited to skipping morning coffee to prevent the possible discomforts of a full day fast.

The response to these courageous decisions has encouraged us to continue our trail-blazing work. I am today proud to announce to you that SHICR has made another exciting halakhic breakthrough, an historic decision that promises to change the course of Jewish life in America. This breakthrough is nothing less than an unprecedented assault on the soaring intermarriage rate.

So far, the various establishment attempts to address this issue adult education, better schools,trips to Israel, Holocaust awareness have all failed to stem the tide. This is because we have gone about it in an unimaginative way. Looking to buy a ?

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