A Modest Proposal To Eliminate That Overdraft

A Modest Proposal To Eliminate That Overdraft

by Asher Keren

With the government and the Bank of Israel squeezing the Israeli private and small business sectors to eliminate their overdrafts, a lot of people are feeling the pressure. Of an estimated five million accounts in Israel’s five major banks, over three million accounts need to establish a new credit limit. But for at least one brave soul out there, I have a modest proposal that could make millions of dollars, and relatively quickly, say a matter of weeks or months, depending on how quickly the idea is acted upon.

The genesis of this end all financial worry idea is located, interestingly enough, in Barcelona, Spain. There is a company there called Polyphonic HMI and what they have proposed to achieve, no more and no less, is to make the music industry completely predictable. Specifically, they have developed software that can analyze a new song and the artist singing it, and predict whether it will turn into a hit or not. Their software measures the musical traits, such as melody, harmonic variation, beat, tempo, rhythm, pitch and chord progressions of known current hits. By comparing these proven hit quality parameters with any new song, they hope to predict whether the new song has a chance of making the top of the hit list, and therefore making millions of dollars. Although they do not state as much, one possible danger of this strategy is that anyone that has this software could tailor craft a new song according to what direction the parameters define. And that would lead to the end of creativity as we know it; the final knockdown by commercial interests over artistic inspiration.

I started wondering to myself if this creation of Polyphonic HMI from Barcelona was really such a new thing. Perhaps it is for the music industry, although both the music and movie industries for years already have relied on the innate human software of their executives to do much the same thing. Still, as we all know, humans are far less perfect than advanced software which is, I suppose, why the Spanish company has tried to eliminate the human factor completely. After pondering this development for a few minutes, I came to realize that our leftist Israeli and enlightened world culture is no less as computer predictable as anything that Polyphonic HMI could develop, at least within the political sphere. This led me immediately to the money making scheme. Remember, this is an article about eliminating the bank overdraft.

So, here is the modest proposal, and as I am sure you will all agree, there is no need for advanced software in predicting the unprecedented financial success that anyone following this idea will achieve. This suggestion is especially suited for anyone living in Judea and Samaria, but with some originality it can be applied to all right wingers, especially those living in Israel. For now, however, let’s use a settler as the paradigm of this get rich scheme. Here goes: what would happen if a settler were to write a book publicly renouncing anything that he has believed in until today? Yes, that is the entire idea but please just think about it for a bit while I explain.

A settler from Judea and Samaria writes a book saying that he has seen the light, that after all of these years he has finally understood that the settlements are immoral and the entire reason for Middle East tensions to boot. This settler than can tell of how he has started to help Palestinians in the planting of their olive trees, how he has helped establish social clubs so that Arab men can meet Jewish women in order to eradicate all false cultural definitions, such as religion and nationality. This settler could even do far better by describing, let’s say, a meeting with fellow settlers whereby he finally saw the devils for what they really and truly are, fascist warmongers without any regard for Palestinian rights and for the basic humanitarian goals of the recently founded Jewish state. He could write of the corrupt and fascist principles of the Eretz Yisrael Hashlema ideology which has created a curse for the entire region, as well as being the direct cause for the 9/11 tragedy in the United States. Pray tell, this settler would finally admit that Israel’s victory in the Six Day War was the beginning of our internal deceit and our ultimate demise, unless quickly and entirely reversed.

This settler will find a publisher, and a major one at that, in approximately ten minutes after he sends his spectacular admissions and revelations out over the internet. Within days his book will become an international bestseller and he will likely be invited to all the important Israeli television programs, from the news to Yair Lapid. He will be courted by the Who’s Who of Israeli society and will mingle with journalists, politicians, academics, models and actors. It is hoped that this particularly savvy entrepreneur also speaks English and several European languages; chiefly French and German, as he will for sure make the rounds as a special and feasted guest in the world’s capitals while his book is translated into at least forty languages. If he plays his cards right, he may even get his own TV show while also being the obvious candidate to write and sing Israel’s next entry into the Eurovision contest, which will, of course, win hands down, even without the aid of the Polyphonic HMI software package.

This idea, I must add quite modestly, is a guaranteed winner! There are those of you that may have moral problems with this proposal, but that is only because you have not read on to the end. You see, the catch is, that after this particular marketing genius has made his millions and closed hermetically and forever his overdraft, he than tells the world that it was all a joke. He really didn’t mean anything by it at all and is still firmly ensconced in his Jewish and Zionist settler ideologies. He just needed a few bucks and also, along the way, wanted to show his newly found friends that they were as predictable as the morning sun, something even more eternally accurate than some high tech software.

http://www.jewishinternetsites.com

Five Synagogues (a short story)

Five Synagogues (a short story)

by Asher Keren

There are times in life when you just close your eyes and move on, as if nothing had happened. The memories, still fresh, will only haunt if you let them, no matter how much time has passed. That is the fate of a soldier. Yitzchak understood all of this, as he brandished his rifle and walked towards the synagogue down the street and up the hill. He was freshly showered and wearing an IDF uniform just back from the laundry, but he couldn’t disguise the disgust he felt from within. “Shut down your emotions”, he commanded of his brain as if going into battle, and just welcome the Sabbath with everyone else. He repeated his new mantra, “God forgives.”

But people very often don’t forgive. Avshalom and Michal struggled up the hill with their baby stroller, trying to negotiate the new paths that they would come to know better over time. This was their new home, for now. The synagogue would be full of new faces and new prayers. A fresh start. What was important to them was to start building a new life, despite their being evacuated refugees in their own country. They had gone as far north as possible after those days of summer desert heat, crying and praying, as far as possible from their destroyed home in Gush Katif. They knew they could never erase the memories, nor forget the faces of the soldiers that evicted them from their homes. There was hardly any point in trying.

As Yitzchak walked up the hill he joined the rest of the congregants arriving at the synagogue and thanked God that he knew not one of them. “This was the perfect choice to get away from it all”, he thought, “far away from family, friends and evacuees that he had personally thrown out of their homes…. and synagogues.” Total anonymity; although, he knew only too well that Israel was a very small country. Placing his rifle beneath his carefully selected plastic seat on the outer most side of the minyan, he looked into the crowd and into his prayer book and then started to cry, silently and pitifully. Yitzchak could not see the words in front of his eyes.

“Let’s do this slowly”, Avshalom thought, not wanting to be treated like some kind of hero that he obviously wasn’t. After all, he and his friends had lost the battle for their jobs and their homes. His shame was so great that he felt he needed to make acquaintance with his new community slowly, from the perimeter, like a beggar slowly honing in on his new benefactor. He took his plastic seat and placed it behind Yitzchak, touching with his feet the rifle on the floor ahead of him.

While the rest of the congregation welcomed the Sabbath with the ‘Licha Dodi’ hymnal, Michal peeked from behind the curtain of the women’s section. As she clutched her baby, her eyes futilely scanned the entire width of the men’s section, intuitively knowing that Avshalom would surely be on the outside, looking for a way in. “God save us”, she said under her breath as she saw Yitzchak standing in front of her husband, knowing that Avshalom hadn’t a clue, his eyes closed in fervent prayer.

“There are paradoxes of our existence that no man can understand, but to deny them and to cling to only part of the puzzle is sheer lunacy.” Dan was a respected member of his neighborhood, but he was not the Rabbi. Still, his thoughts reflected those of almost half of the community and he had no intention of burying this issue. It was not only current, but critical for the future. If the Israeli government wanted to continue with its insane eviction of Jews from the rest of Judea and Samaria, the lessons of Gush Katif must be made as strongly as possible to every single soldier that had participated in the expulsion and that might be called upon to participate in upcoming evictions. The Givatayyim congregation where he had prayed his entire life must admit no soldier that contributed to kicking Jews out of their homes. Certain acts can never be excused and the fact that his Rabbi had lost all moral clarity on the issue made no matter to him.

Dan had grown up with his Rabbi, had even served with him in the IDF Engineering Corps in Lebanon. He knew that the Rabbi’s son, Yitzchak, had been an active participant in the Gush Katif expulsion. Dan didn’t care. There are acts that can never be excused and he was proud of the fact that his own son had been relieved of his command and had even sat in an army jail for refusing the order to evict. Rabbi Uzi, as he was fondly called, had claimed that the IDF was still holy and beyond reproach, as their chief goal was still to fight the enemy, one of the paradoxes that Dan referred to in his speech before the congregants.

As Dan spoke with his usual fervor, he pleaded to all that the terrible Hillul Hashem, as he called it, would never be repeated again. He was referring to ‘the incident’, as it would forever be ensconced in the small congregation’s collective memory, that had occurred during a Tuesday night evening service in their synagogue a couple of nights before. A soldier had entered to pray, innocently enough by all accounts, being welcomed as a guest by nothing less than the warm handshake of Rabbi Uzi. Before the prayers started, Dan shouted out to the soldier, “You better have not been in Gush Katif last week in that uniform; otherwise, you are not welcome in our midst. This is not Yom Kippur and we will not pray with the sinners!” The soldier, having accustomed himself to these verbal attacks, responded with the typical false arrogance reserved for those gaining their feet in the world of adults and stood his ground. “I received”, he shouted back at Dan, “a Da’at Torah that I must obey orders, no matter how painful. Yes, I was there, and my Rabbi gave me his hechsher to participate. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Dan could hold back no longer. “Who is this holy Rabbi of yours that would give you such a Da’at Torah?” Rabbi Uzi struggled within himself for just a second and then made his decision. Taking the soldier by the hand that he had not yet released, he moved him to the bima to lead the congregation in prayers. Looking defiantly at Dan with his piercing blue eyes, he said in a whisper that echoed throughout the room, “I am his Rabbi giving this opinion right here and now”. Giving the soldier a prayer book to lead the congregation in the Ma’ariv service, he patted the uniformed youngster on the back and said, “From this moment until you leave this House of God, I am your Rabbi. You have nothing to fear save God alone. Please lead us in our prayers.”

Had Michal not had to transverse the entire women’s section pushing a baby stroller, she would have run with all her speed to Avshalom as the prayers were concluded. While the others may have worshipped God for granting the holy and restful Sabbath, Miri could only pray that Avshalom would not see Yitzchak’s face. As the congregants systematically deserted the synagogue in a moving crowd, likes bees leaving the hive, Avshalom was no longer in Michal’s sight. Turning her head so that the young and handsome soldier with his rifle strung over his arm would not notice her as he left the synagogue, Michal struggled against the crowd and pushed the stroller into the men’s section. Avshalom was alone, sitting in his seat, his head down and tears rolling down his cheeks. She knew immediately that he had seen him, that Avshalom had recognized Yitzchak exactly for what he was, and will always be, in their eyes. She sat beside him and placed her hand in his, while Yitzchak strolled down the hill, all the while thanking God for his momentary grace of anonymity.

Things in the freshly relinquished Gaza Strip were heating up as former synagogues were burned and homes trashed by Palestinians wallowing in the ashes of their hard earned victory. There was a need to keep things as quiet as possible and the IDF had dispatched soldiers to the new border at the Kissufim crossing, just to remind these thugs and their leaders that entering again would pose no problem for the most powerful army in the Middle East. Yitzchak would cut his vacation early and rejoin his platoon in a day. Before doing so, he needed to check something out first. After the Sabbath he would catch a hitch to Jerusalem, straight to his cousin in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood near the Ultra-Orthodox bastion known as Mea Shearim.

“What do you know of Da’at Torah”, Rabbi Yisrael asked Yitzchak in the dimly lit shtibel that soon would open its doors to the afternoon Mincha service. “I only know that my father, Rabbi Uzi, understands these matters to an extent far greater than my own personal understandings. He was a student of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, so he can hardly be accused of making light the relinquishing of the Land, but his considerations are mamlachti first and foremost”, said Yitzchak, referring to the modern Jew’s need to be subservient to the political decisions of the miraculously resurrected State of Israel. “So”, continued Yitzchak, “if this is my respected father’s Da’at Torah, who am I to think differently?” His cousin, who had two years before become a fervent Bretzlaver Hassid, sat quietly and hopefully as Rabbi Yisrael, his new mentor into the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Bretzlov, looked deeply into the eyes of his lost and wayward cousin, Yitzchak.

“Yet, my dear Yitzchak, you are uncomfortable with this opinion you have received, am I correct? You fear your punishment will be great? This is why I asked you what you know of Da’at Torah, Yitzchak. Do you know what Da’at Torah means to a Hassid, I mean, to a true Hassid?” Yitzchak did not reply. He knew the answer would be forthcoming and even worse, he had no idea what the correct answer was to what had always seemed to him a rather straight forward concept. Da’at Torah to him meant listening to the opinion of Torah scholars, regardless of his own thoughts and feelings. What was the problem? The idea of Da’at Torah was never something that he had really delved into before. He had always just accepted it in the most elementary of forms. What depth could the obviously saintly Rabbi Yisrael add to such an uncomplicated notion?

Rabbi Yisrael, sensing Yitzchak’s confusion, continued on with his explanation. “Yitzchak, I must ask you a rather difficult question, if you do not oppose my doing so. But you must understand, I do not yet know you, nor do I understand to what depths you have taken your Torah studies, although I am sure you are well acquainted with our holy books. Permit me please, Yitzchak, to ask you what you understand of the binding of Isaac, the Akedat Yitzchak?” As expected, Yitzchak just stared at Rabbi Yisrael vacuously, as if the question had appeared from the farthest reaches of the firmament. Before he could even begin to mumble a somewhat intelligible answer, Rabbi Yisrael continued. “Total submission, Yitzchak, total submission. This is what Abraham offered to God. It was not his son that Abraham offered, but rather his ego, his emotions and his intellect as one.”

While this was a pretty standard answer, it still left Yitzchak uneasy for a couple of reasons, the first of which was that nobody seemed to talk about Isaac, or Yitzchak, the one to be sacrificed. As quickly as this thought appeared, however, he understood as well that this part of the discussion was not about him, but about the biblical characters in the story. The binding of Isaac had always bothered Yitzchak’s basic moral temperament and that while he sensed somehow that Rabbi Yisrael could provide an answer to this predicament, he also knew that now was not the time. It would have to wait for later.

Rabbi Yisrael was onto something else completely and Yitzchak felt bound to listen without interjecting his own thoughts. It was different than the discussions he had with his father or with other Rabbis. Just by looking at Rabbi Yisrael and hearing his soothing voice, Yitzchak had already felt differently about Da’at Torah. It was something intuitive more than intellectual; something visceral and not cerebral. Maybe this provided a clue to dealing with the entire Akedat Yitzchak episode, but just as Yitzchak began to allow his mind to wander into these thoughts, Rabbi Yisrael spoke again.

“The binding of Isaac is nearly identical to Da’at Torah, at least to the true Hassidim. Our Masters have taught us, from the story of the binding of Isaac, that one must sacrifice his intellect on the altar of submission to the true Tzaddik. Do you understand my words, Yitzchak?” Yitzchak had understood Rabbi Yisrael’s words only too well, imagining himself to be Abraham’s son submitting himself to the knife of his father’s own submission. As he dwelled on these submissions to submissions, Itzchak’s initial clarity became confused. He looked to his cousin for help but his cousin remained silent. This was not a lesson that he was giving, but rather his mentor, Rabbi Yisrael.

“Your problem, Itzchak, is that you are not truly willing to submit your intellect to another submission”.

“I don’t understand what you are getting at, honorable Rabbi. My problem is that I am not willing to submit to another submission? What do these words mean?”

“Itzchak, Abraham submitted himself to God. In our days to submit oneself to God is to submit oneself to the holy Tzaddik in each and every generation. The Hassid does not submit himself to a concept, Itzchak, but rather to a Tzaddik. We do not believe to sacrifice ourselves, for instance, to the concept called mamlachtiut. Concepts serve one well for a time, but when things change they must be modified, altered and adapted to the new settings. The Tzaddik knows how to do this, so we are not confused, as are your teachers. Do not think for one moment, Yitzchak, that I disparage the saintliness of your father or your other teachers, but you have become confused by their confusion and as Isaac, you have been bound, unable to move. Even worse, my saintly and young Yitzchak, you use the concept of Da’at Torah in a way that confuses you even more because it is lacking in belief, in honest conviction. It is more of an accepted consensus amongst your generation than it is a totally submissive act.” At this, Itzchak’s cousin made his first apparent motion since the conversation began, staring intently at Yitzchak and nodding his head in affirmation of Rabbi Yisrael’s words.

The bus ride down south provided Yitzchak with small comfort. Total and absolute submission of the intellect was difficult enough, but seeing clearly his father’s confusion now as something that he had understood internally when talk of the disengagement first appeared, was too much for him to deal with. He dozed off while the bus continued on to Sderot, the station where he would get off and meet an army jeep waiting and ready to take him to the Kissufim border. In two weeks time he would end his army service and begin a new life. At this point he had felt like getting an operation to change his identity and moving to Jamaica, but he knew that this would provide nothing more than an illusion of escape.

Michal managed her first smile in weeks as there car winded up the narrow approach to Safed. Although she felt a bit guilty about taking a vacation in the midst of her job searching, she knew that she must take some time to collect her thoughts and try to make sense of all that had transpired. She was tired of all the post-mortem arguments of why their attempts to stop disengagement had failed. There were too many opinions out there, too many arguments. No unity and no sense of strength; only confusion. She herself had become virtually paralyzed when she saw Rabbi Uzi’s son, Itzchak, at her Gush Katif home and later at the synagogue of the village they had moved to.

She wondered whether soldiers that had participated in the eviction should be allowed into the synagogues. And she had come to a curious and sad conclusion. There was no apparent holiness to be found in the religious Zionist camp, only disarray. As such, she thought to herself, soldiers like Yitzchak should definitely not be allowed into their places of worship because they would never learn the lesson that needed to be taught. We were unworthy teachers because of our constant bickering and lack of moral clarity. “Keep them out”, she repeated to herself, “or they will learn confusion as well and justify to themselves in their already confused hearts participating in any further evictions.” If the Rabbis and the people could not themselves decide, obviously it was easiest to take the path of least resistance and follow orders.

She laughed within herself as she recalled an old joke she had once heard. It told of a data base at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, whereby the user can enter into the search module the answer to any question he is seeking and the data base will provide the name of the Rabbi giving the precisely desired answer. It made her think of the incredible lack of unity amongst the Rabbis. Somehow, it also made her think in pain of the synagogue of her former Gush Katif community going up in flames.

If only we could invite these soldiers into our synagogues with the full force of knowing that there are rights in this world as well as wrongs. In such a case, a soldier could enter and never leave as he once was. In her weary mind, Michal could see these soldiers almost instantly transfixed and transformed by a world of holy clarity, dignity and unity. After such an experience, she was sure they would never be able to participate in such crimes again.

Avshalom pulled the car over by the side of a small synagogue at the entrance to Sefad. He saw a minyan forming for the afternoon prayer and decided to take the opportunity to pray before continuing on to his uncle’s home, where they would be staying for a few days. As he entered the synagogue, Michal sat in the car with her baby, lazily looking at the scene; a small synagogue in Safed, so far from her old beloved synagogue in Gush Katif.

Suddenly, as if in a dream, her eyes caught the image of Yitzchak. Could it be really be him? He was somehow the same, but also very different. Rabbi Uzi’s son was growing a beard and had turned in his rifle for the large, white kippa of the newly initiated Brezlaver Hassidim. Avshalom had seen him too, and had veered off towards the back of the minyan, while Yitzchak took his place at the bima, leading the Mincha prayers.

http://www.worldofjewish.com

Burning Ego

Burning Ego

By Asher Keren

Israel is a place of truth, which means that it can also be a place of great lies. All of these lies serve the truth; they are transparent, much like a stress signal sent out from a drowning ship, calling for help, begging for recognition in order to heal. When Jews stray from the organic matrix of Judaism in the Land of Israel, they generally do so by cultivating alluring ideologies that call to and trap their prey like the Sirens of Greek mythology. Those caught in the trap become spokesman and personal examples for lifestyles that betray their fellow Jews living in the Land, because Jews cannot live lies in the Land of Israel. The Land itself spews them out, causing suffering and damage to all. No lie can sustain life in the Land of Israel; only truth. This is the message of our Prophets and the profound matrix that connects Jews with the Land.

The latest lie to take false root here is the use of crematoria to burn dead bodies, instead of traditional burial. Civil burial, rather than religious burial, is perhaps not a lie in and of itself, but rather a distortion. The burning of bodies, however, is an out and out lie. The lie is not a lie because of the association with the crematoria of recent history. This too is only a distortion, a sign of disassociation with history and with our collective Jewish pain, but it is not in and of itself a lie. Lies are deeper, penetrating the unique Israeli template that defines who we are as Jews in our Land.

The 'idea' that one may choose to reduce himself to wind blown dust after death is powerful, alluring in its premise that we actually have a right to do with our bodies as we want. Humans have rights, we are told, and this is true. But we are not told that humans do not have full rights to do as they please, which is also true. If we did, we could easily justify suicide, self flagellation, cannibalism (if the dead deemed it proper) and any other rite that depends on the assumption that our bodies are simply that, individual debris without a touch of Godliness, without a hint of holiness, without an intimation of connectedness to others and to the Land.

The assumption that our bodies are ours solely is equal to the assumption that we are God. It is no longer 'God gives and God takes, but rather 'We give and We take'. Placed in these clear terms, the lie would be rejected by most Jews, but lies are never placed in their elementary terms, they are couched in language so beautiful and even 'logical' that their fractional nature is masked from full view.

All lies are partial truths and when people pass by the Sirens called individual rights, self determination, pluralistic choice, personal fate and death as the ultimate endpoint, they betray other partial truths such as human bonding, life – and death - as a gift from God, the great historical chain of being, the organic life giving sustenance given to the earth provided by burying the dead, and the basic human need for the living to visit the deceased.

Only a culture of ultimate egoism could allow for a person to die as if he had never lived, with no firm and guarded ground for his parents and his friends, his colleagues, children and grandchildren to visit. Only a culture that stresses not that we are God's creatures, but rather our own disposable creations, could fathom the use of crematoria. As if a page torn from history, crematoria deny those that follow to visit those that came before. This defiance is not merely emotional denial; it is historical denial. Graves are a record of a people that lived and breathed, fought and studied, fashioned culture and practiced agriculture, of sinners and saints and kings and judges. Graves are a sign that we were here, in the Land of Israel.

Were all of the above partial truths not important, then crematoria are a right that every individual may choose. But these latter considerations are important. They bind us to our past, to our family, to our tribe, to our Land and confirm that our rights, while important, are not primary, not in a world created by God. And so, we are faced with a lie that teaches us a great truth. Jews that connect to the matrix of God, history and the Land will persevere. Those that do not will be gone with the wind.

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The New Sabbatianism?

The New Sabbatianism?

by Asher Keren

Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Holy Ari, died in 1572, about 64 years before the birth of Sabbatai Zevi. By this time Lurianic Kabbala had spread to all corners of the Jewish world and it would be the young Sabbatai Zevi, along with Nathan of Gaza, that would extend the Lurianic system into areas of mystical experience that would ultimately lead to disaster for the Jewish people.

More recently, the death of Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook, in 1935, preceded the government of Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria by approximately the same amount of time that separated the death of the Ari z’l from the birth of Sabbatai Zevi. Although I claim no mystical knowledge, perhaps this is no small coincidence. Further, perhaps simple historical analysis is enough to explain this time gap without need for mystical explanation.

It takes a couple of generations for a people to simultaneously absorb a message and to twist it accordingly. This article claims that many of today’s Rabbis and other students and followers of Rav Kook are in danger of extending his teachings to conclusions that are as misguided as those that Sabbatai Zevi made based on Lurianic Kabbala. This is not an academic article by any means; merely some thoughts, although I do invite serious scholars to follow note and to take up the challenge. My call is an urgent one, as the times demand us to get our feet back on the ground and to face reality.

Lurianic Kabbala introduced the idea of the ‘breaking of the vessels’, whereby evil remained in this world in the form of ‘klippot’, or membranes that hid the ultimate good and truth. The Ari z’l gave personal prescriptions to his followers to rid themselves of their ‘klippot’ as much as possible. This was a way for personal ‘tikkun’, or repairing of one’s soul. Sabbatai Zevi took these ideas and made redemption a chiefly mystical process, whereby he abandoned the need for moral constraint (chiefly, but not solely, sexual constraint) as prescribed by Jewish Law so that the evil ‘klippot’ could be redeemed by face to face confrontation.

This is by no means a simple matter. The implications of this are tremendous. The Ari z’l, although probing in revolutionary manner the depths of the Jew’s personal soul as well as that of the nation, did not abandon the Torah prescribed methods for achieving a holy and moral life. He expanded traditional ways of understanding these ideas, revolutionized previous mystical understandings and developed ascetic methods for achieving holiness, but he never turned Jewish law on its head, as prescribed by Sabbatai Zevi.

Evil is something that need be confronted, but to claim that its redemption demands the active participation in evil itself, as did Sabbatai Zevi, is to confuse and make hazy those very boundaries which Torah makes clear should never be violated. There is a certain knowledge that can only be had by experience, but there is no less a truth in realizing that to actively touch certain forms of evil is usually a form of self aggrandizement and no more. This was the chief problem with Sabbatai Zevi, as proved by his personal life. He did not touch evil and redeem it; rather, he only weakened his already problematic character, making his subsequent conversion to Islam quite a testimonial as to the depth of his personal convictions and discipline. Had he kept some boundaries in his personal life, his tragic ending may have been quite different.

There are truths which are not to be touched in the day to day life of individuals or nations, except in the most theoretical of realms. While it is clear that the highly religious and spiritual soul is laden with complexity and so much more so that of an entire nation, especially the Jewish people, it is equally as clear that there need be boundaries as to how far the expression of this deep truth should extend. Further, there is a significant question as to how far the acquiescence to this complexity is tolerable.

When the political and secular Zionists returned to the physical building and settling of the Land of Israel, Rav Kook’s revolutionary and mystical take on the deep urging of the nation to return to its roots in the Land was a veritable theosophical volcanic eruption. Rav Kook looked into the deepest mystical truths of the nation Israel, incorporating into his thought all the possible considerations of what we had been through and to where we were going in order to make sense of the fact that our return to the Land was very much a secular accomplishment. There was both reason for hope and even partial acquiescence in light of secular Zionism’s tremendous accomplishments.

Rav Kook’s followers took his insights into national redemption into the practical sphere by working hand in hand with the secular Zionists, despite the fact that there were tremendous religious compromises in doing so. Although not by any means simple, Zionism’s tremendous accomplishments culminating in the Six Day War and the return of the Temple Mount into Jewish hands lent a strong sense of justification to Rav Kook’s revolutionary ideas.

But over the years, the secular populace of the state has furthered itself more and more from even the most rudimentary identification with Judaism and has, since the Oslo accords, begun a process of disenfranchisement from the classic Zionist ideology of Jewish settlement in the Land. With last summer’s disengagement and the further planned abandonment of vast tracts of Judea and Samaria, the secular leadership of the country has reversed the pioneering aspirations of their Zionist forefathers. This, coupled with an almost total abandonment of Jewish values, has led to a reality far different than that confronted by Rav Kook.

Almost everything about secular Zionism, or as it is so tellingly labeled these days, ‘post-Zionism’, has changed. It is impossible to predict what Rav Kook would have written today about the situation, although it is known that he had warned of this possibility. Still, many of his followers act and write of a situation today in frames of reference identical to what Rav Kook wrote almost one hundred years ago. It need not matter that in Rav Kook’s time the secular were building, not destroying, the Jewish presence in the Land. It further need not matter that in Rav Kook’s time the secular were composing their own versions of the Passover Haggada or their own thoughts on Shavuot, whereas today they can be found either in the disco, on the beach or even in a foreign land for the Jewish festivals. Finally, it apparently need not matter to Rav Kook’s followers that today the religious Jewish settlers are amongst the most hated and vilified of the country’s populace whereas the original secular and religious pioneers found a common – Zionist – language, despite their great ideological differences.

Many of Rav Kook’s current followers tend to close their eyes in order to redeem today’s evils by dancing together with its perpetrators, a modern day version of the Sabbatian idea of abandoning all moral norms in order to touch the most sour and dangerous of ‘klippot’. They have lost all touch with any moral order and still insist that the entire nation is in redemptive mode. Perhaps they are correct on the most mystical of levels, but it is not a truth for day to day living. Torah, including two of its most illustrious interpreters, the holy Ari z’l and the Rav Kook, always recognized that certain boundaries must never be crossed.

Rav Kook once wrote that the redemption will come through unfettered love between all Jews that knows no bounds and is independent of the various ideologies prevalent amongst our people. This statement of Rav Kook is a favorite quote of his followers. But just as parents have such a love for their children, this does not mean that this love contradicts the need for education and sometimes punishment as well. To the contrary, punishing our youngsters when they are seriously out of line is prerequisite to true love for them. But this is missed by many of Rav Kook’s followers. To them, this love means no punishment and even an embracing of those that perpetrate such abhorrent acts as the physical expulsion of Jews from their homes for no reason at all except to satisfy American demands (in the case of Northern Samaria) or for the desire to set up a casino for corrupt politicians with business interests (in the case of the Northern Gaza Strip settlements). In this way, they hope to stifle the immoral trends of secular Zionism by showing them love despite the crossing of boundaries that by all accounts are crimes against humanity. This is a modern day version of Sabbatianism.

The new Sabbatians, rather than ordering their students to not participate in any way, shape, manner or form in any further cruelties while serving in the army, teach them to evict together with their fellow secular soldiers. This, despite the recognition by military experts in Israel and abroad, that it is a practical given that the forced eviction of Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria will open the relinquished territory to almost unrestrained Hamas and Hizbollah attacks on the entire State of Israel. And this makes no mention of the basic violation of human rights inherent in evicting people from their homes. In other words, moral order has been lost upon those that would twist the teaching of Rav Kook, just as it was lost by Sabbatai Zevi and his followers. By adopting false Sabbatian mystical notions, they will end up endangering physically the entire country.

Even worse, their mystical basis of excusing any action by the Israeli government may lead to civil war. Just as with Sabbatai Zevi hundreds of years earlier, had the authorities used full force to stop his reckless Messianic aspirations, many less people would have gotten hurt when the lie was exposed. Today, by refusing to participate in government actions or apparatuses that consistently go against all Jewish and even Zionist principles, there may be a chance of stemming the tide before things get violent. There is a limit to what people are willing to suffer, be it through evictions or anti-religious legislation or other actions. To stem the tide now is to preempt violent confrontation. But again, false Messianic and mystical pretensions take the moral responsibility out of one’s hands and place it at the doorstep of God. This is not Judaism, but it is sure very close to Sabbatianism.

It is indeed telling that many of Rav Kook’s students have fought against the publishing of his harsher criticisms against secular Zionism and seem to only quote from his more positive and mystical treatises. They must know deep down that they are entering forbidden waters, that their lack of taking a stand against the immoral and often blatantly anti-Semitic acts of current Israeli secular society is a jump into dangerous Sabbatianism. And if they choose to continue to dance with the devil in order to release the Messiah from the throes of the evil ‘klippot’, as per Sabbatai Zevi and NOT as per Rav Kook, they will face the responsibility of sending the Jewish people into another disastrous spiral downwards.

Our sons and Our Daughters

OUR SONS AND OUR DAUGHTERS

By Asher Keren

When I was a youth growing up in the States, my synagogue’s Rabbi heard that I was about to take my first trip to Israel. He told me that he too would be there for a visit and that if I wanted, he would take me to see his good friend, Teddy Kolek, then mayor of Jerusalem. I told him thanks, but no thanks. It was nothing against my Rabbi or against Teddy Kolek; actually, I had never heard of Teddy Kolek until my Rabbi told me who he was, but still something inside told me that the Israelis in the fields, at the bus stops and in the cities were the ones that I wanted to seek out. I had grown up meeting U.S. senators, NASA astronauts and other public personalities but somehow always found more authenticity in those that had not achieved some level of stardom. I sensed that meeting Kolek, while perhaps providing some kind of important future connection, would be much less informative and essential than meeting Menachem from the kibbutz or Moshe from Kiryat Malachi.

When I made aliyah a few years later I had the same feeling, although I at one time had worked as a ghost writer for a Minister that had his office near that of the Prime Minister. During that stint, I met many a public personality, even once presiding over a meeting of foreign VIPs and Israeli power brokers during an event at the President’s home. Today, some of those that I met hold key positions in Israeli society but I think little of them or of my conversations with them. Rather, I hold dearer to my heart every Israeli I have met at the university, the army, regular day in and day out work, on the bus or in the local market, or even at the ‘makolet’.

The reason for writing this is that our dear, dear country will in the next few days begin a robust and exceedingly important debate as to how our leaders performed during this current war, who was at fault and who should be replaced. It is therefore vastly important to take a few minutes to completely forget about them before this debate breaks out countrywide into every street or home conversation. It is proper and fitting to remember first and foremost those that have given their lives for our leaders’ mistakes and false assumptions; the little people that are indeed an Israeli asset almost infinitely more profound and worthy of praise than any of our current leaders.

Our soldiers were thrown into battle without proper training, equipment and sometimes without food and water. The army’s top brass and the nation’s political echelon wasted at least two years of money and preparation on evicting Jews from their homes. As such, the miracles of what our soldiers achieved during this war are even greater than seems apparent. Hizbollah was badly damaged under the most difficult of military contexts and no thanks to our military or political leaders. Of course, victory was not conclusive and still seems elusive to some degree, but the mere fact that our soldiers dealt such a harsh blow to the enemy under the most trying of circumstances is testimony to the greatness of the Israelis, all Israelis, who put their shoulder to the gun and gave it their all for their homeland.

Our soldiers went into enemy territory while the enemy sat below them in bunkers that they constructed for years for just such a war setting, without any intervention from our leaders. This, it must be said, is a war crime that our leaders are fully guilty of and this must be stated with no reluctance. One soldier that spoke to a friend of mine described the sheer horror of walking through fields without knowing when or from where the enemy would suddenly appear from his underground hideout. Yet he and his comrades continued on, often without necessary combat gear. Thousands of protective jackets and other essential accouterments were purchased by the soldiers themselves at great costs and often after already having gone through battle, as our army’s leaders had wasted their budget on training soldiers to evict Jews a year earlier. The battle gear needed for evicting Jews is, of course, far cheaper than that needed to fend off terrorists deep in enemy territory.

Not withstanding our national leadership crisis, we can take heart and inspiration from our soldiers, ones like Yossi Abitbul, a young Torah scholar who chose to serve before continuing on with his studies. He had the option of not enlisting in order to continue his studies, but he desired to serve in the Golani brigade, where he met his death on Lebanese soil. Ro’i Klein was buried on his thirty first birthday, after having jumped on a hand grenade to protect his fellow soldiers. Ro’i was a gifted musician, philosopher and a devoted husband and father. Nineteen year old Tomer Amar was released from active duty for 28 days after injuring his foot, but insisted on joining his brigade when he heard that eight of his friends were killed in the battle of Bint Jabel. Despite the fact that he could have taken his leave of absence, he rejoined his squad along with his hampering injury only to find his death at Shaqif a Nimal. These three Jewish heroes represent our finest and bravest. They are representative of a people that knows self sacrifice and kinship. They and their many fallen comrades have bestowed upon us a gift of life. Not only them but indeed all those that donned their uniforms instead of their business suits for our collective sake are deserving of our most sincere gratitude. We must somehow find the way to help their families get through the tragic loss.

I never did meet Teddy Kollek, but I did meet 27 year old B’naya Rein, who fell yesterday in Lebanon. May his memory and the memory of all our soldiers be a blessing to us all and a reminder to our leaders that they are not Israel’s best. In order for them to meet our best, to lead such a fine and worthy nation of selfless fighters, they should start shopping again at the local market or taking buses again from Jerusalem to Ashdod, as they did in their youth, before they sold their soul to politics. They should remember from ground level our people that go about their daily lives willing to don a uniform and rifle at their leaders’ call. It is critical to know what our people is really made of and what a privilege and responsibility it is to create the destiny of our sons and our daughters.

Hard Times

Hard Times

by Asher Keren

It hardly could be called despair. Her faded, torn jeans were way beyond even her own despair and her young angelic face was dirty and in need of rest, while her long blonde hair was in need of some conditioner. Those blue eyes she wore were just about as empty as her prayers which she had given up saying a long time ago, but her cotton t-shirt was miraculously clean and her overall shape was befitting a young and beautiful sixteen year old girl-woman. When she passed by me at the bus station today I could hardly wonder what she had been through and why, at such a wonderful age, she obviously knew more about herself and others than most people do at the age of sixty.

I never looked back at her. She was heading straight to the market where old, hand me down clothes are sold together with used DVDs of long forgotten movies, cheap watches, cheap lipstick, cheap cameras and oh yes, almost any kind of knife or dagger you could ever need or fear. Brass knuckles, too.

So, I didn’t need to look back at her because I knew where she was headed. She was headed beyond all of that, to the empty alleyway just behind the stalls where a person such as her could lazily sit, maybe smoke a last cigarette, and doze off in shame.

I wanted to help but I could not. To help one like that, so young and so sad, is to invite failure. What could I offer her? Money? Even if I had it would be gone in a day. Love? Well, I’m older, attached and not quite sure about what love means myself. Friendship? Possibly, but what does friendship mean beyond a good word? ‘They’ say (the books, that is) that friendship means commitment, aid and being there for the other, no matter how difficult. Certainly, I am in no position to offer myself as a friend.

Maybe I should have taken her to a soup kitchen or to a shelter, but honestly I did not think of it when I saw her. Only now, several hours later, when I sit down to write, do I think of the obvious, like simply buying her one of those sandwhiches sold at the stalls. Hopefully, though, I helped her most by just leaving her alone.

I wonder what her name is, Olga, Sveta, Ina or maybe even Kinneret or Amy. I did not hear her speak so it is hard to place her origins, but she is lost all the same. Like so many others wandering around that immense complex of concrete housing devoted to extinguished hope and fallen pride, more popularly know as the New Tel Aviv bus station.

No, it wasn’t despair that passed by me in the form of this young person. It was beyond that. It was beyond caring at all. While I passed her by, out of the building, into the congested Tel Aviv afternoon and towards my car, I understood exactly what she felt. She felt nothing. I imagine our great Zionist thinkers or even our biblical Prophets would have felt exactly the same, had they showed up one day at the New Tel Aviv bus station - the nothingness of a depressed dreamer, just another passerby, not even knowing where to start.