A Pregnant Year

This coming year, 5771, will be a Jewish leap year. The Hebrew term is "Shana Me'uberet," which literally means a "pregnant" year. We add a thirteenth month every few years to keep the lunar and solar years in synch. You might have noticed that Pesah and Rosh Hashanah came out unusually early this civil year. The lunar year is eleven days short, and if the regression were allowed to continue Pesah would be celebrated in winter, not in spring as the Torah dictates. Next year, starting with Purim, the holidays come unusually late.
Jewish mysticism has a "pregnant" year carrying "excess baggage," blessings or, God forbid, curses. 5708, the year Israel became a state, was a leap year; the state was declared May 14, which is as late as Yom Ha-atzma'ut ever comes. Similarly, Jerusalem was liberated in 5727, also a "pregnant" year, and Yom Yerushalayim rarely comes later than June 7, the civil date of the miracle of 1967.
May the coming year be "pregnant" with even greater miracles and "give birth" to the ge'ulah shelemah, the final redemption.
I wish my readers and klal Yisrael a ktiva va-hatima tova.

Settlements - An Obstacle to Piece

Broaden the space of your tents and stretch the curtains of your dwellings, spare not, lengthen your cords and strengthen your poles. For you shall expand left and right, and your seed will possess nations and inhabit waste places. . .(Isaiah 54:2,3)


This passage is read as the haftara for Parshat Ki-Teze, the fifth of the seven haftarot of consolation between Tisha B'Av and Rosh Hashanah. It is also the haftara for Parshat Noah. It is alluded to in one of the piyyutim recited on Hoshanna Rabbah before we beat the arava. Since the Six Day War, the message has been unmistakably clear. The Prophet is speaking to us. The ge'ula is unfolding before us, and we are called to possess and inhabit the waste places that had once been ours, and to make them flourish once again. And since the Six Day War, dedicated hatutzim (just about the only ones left!) under the influence of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook zt"l have done exactly that. Settlements have sprung up all over Yehuda v'Shomron on land that belongs to us even if the rest of the world says otherwise. American Presidents have repeated the same litany since the Six Day War: the settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace. Since Oslo, American Presidents have maintained that the land involved shoud become a "Palestinian" state. Never mind that for nineteen years when the Arabs held the land there was never any talk of a "Palestinian" state, nor indeed of a Palestinian people. The land was held by the Palestinian state that already exists, namely Jordan, but Jordan's sovereignty over it was recognized by only two nations on earth: Great Britain and Pakistan. The Arabs' intentions were and are crystal clear, except to the deliberately self-blinded: destroy Israel. If they can't destroy it all at once, they would destroy it piece by piece. Whatever concessions they can wring out of us with the help of a craven American administration they would take, and use it to prepare for the next round. There never was a peace process, only a "piece process" - one piece of Israel to our enemies followed by another and another. The settlements create facts on the ground that are difficult to erase, as a faithless Israeli government learned in 2005 in Gaza. The settlements came down but at a cost to Israeli cohesion and soldiers' morale that future governments should be loath to repeat. And what did we get for it? Daily rocket fire on Sderot and as far north as Ashkelon. A piece process indeed! The settlements are quite legal by God's law, and "an obstacle to piece."

But what about the soldiers who will have to fight to defend them? Do we want more boys coming home in caskets? Of course not, but even worse would be the peace of the grave. Since before the founding of the State we made a value judgment that it is better to go down fighting than to go down not fighting. Actually, this is a value judgment that men have made from time immemorial. We are primates, and primates are territorial animals; sorry folks, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. We defend what is ours. On December 8, 1941 young American men, enraged by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, queued up to join the Army. Imagine if Americans then had regarded peace as the highest priority, and not unleashed our full power on Japan and Germany. Think back to 1861, and imagine if Abraham Lincoln had listened to the "anything for peace" counsels, and there were many, and allowed the South to go its way. America would have been spared a long and bloody war with frightful losses. But it would not have become a superpower, able to stand up to the Nazis and the Communists, and the world would be a different, and much worse, place. Those of us who would walk away from Eretz Yisrael are infected by two millenia of deterritorialization, also known as galut, as well as by decades of secularist claptrap questioning whether the land is really ours. Or perhaps they had their manhood sucked away by two generations of feminist propaganda. We've been told for as long as I can remember to be "sensitive," to "get in touch with our feminine side," that machismo is bad, that we're all suffering from a fictitious malady called "testosterone poisoning," ad nauseam. We're even made to feel guilty for thanking God we're men. So now we're sold on the idea that nothing at all is worth fighting for. We won't stand up to the schoolyard bully, the mugger on the street, or the Arab enemies who will never accept an Israel of any shape or size.

Many good and decent Jews, religious and secular, disagree with the above, including the writer of a blog I regularly read and with whom I generally agree. How should we relate to them? I have heard them characterized in the vilest of terms, quite unbecoming people who should know how to conduct a mahloket l'shem shamayim (argument for the sake of Heaven). Our ba'alei plugta (ideological opponents) must be treated with the utmost respect. Words like "traitor" have no place in the discourse; traitors are motivated by personal gain, while our opponents genuinely believe they are acting in the best interests of Israel and the Jewish people. The boycott by a Knesset member of the special session in memory of the late Yitzhak Rabin is exactly what is not needed. Even when the opposition calls us warmongers and such, we should not respond in kind. The argument must always be ad rem (to the thing), never ad hominem (to the person). As I learned as a child from Rabbi Chaim Yachnes, even when somebody's pshat is totally wrong, always attack the pshat, never the person. I am certain that Rav Kook and his son would not have it any other way.

Civilization vs Barbarism

Civilization vs Barbarism: That is the titanic struggle in which we are engaged. Eight years ago today Islamic barbarians crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing some 3000 innocent people. We've gotten accustomed to soft living and too many of us take the blessings of liberty for granted and are unwilling to fight for our freedom. A free people unwilling to fight for their freedom is sure to lose it. Watch this video for a preview of what can happen to us, God forbid, if we don't stand up to those who would take our freedom away. If you think that the barbarians no longer have evil designs against us, watch The Third Jihad. And bear in mind that some Jews in Israel would be happy with a state like what exists in Iran and Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Review my previous posts for 9/11 anniversaries. Tomorrow is the Jewish Yahrzeit, always 23 Elul, exactly one week before Rosh Hashanah. Think of the good people who were murdered by the devil-worshipers, and of the good people who fell in battle for our way of life, and who are coming home severely wounded. When you get solicitations from the Jewish War Veterans, Disabled American Veterans and similar groups, don't throw them away. We remain free because of the people they help.

And if you want to see the Twin Towers rise again, visit http://www.teamtwintowers.org/ and http://www.twintowersalliance.com/ .

A Tale of Two Williamsburgs

Due to an arthritic knee, I haven't run the New York (or any) Marathon since 2003. In order to feel part of the festivities, I watch the Marathon and cheer from the sidelines. I like to watch from Williamsburg. It is ten miles into the race. Runners, especially those attempting the race on minimal training, are getting tired and in need of a lift. But the Hasidim are (in)famously impassive. Few are on the street. Those that are mostly ignore us, or else eye us like we're visitors from space. No applause, no "looking good," nothing, not even when I run past wearing an Israeli-flag top and shouting something in Hebrew. Once I managed to garner an "Amen" after shouting out a loud shehakol on a cup of water. So I ride to Bedford and Flushing Avenues, park myself on the sidewalk, and give the runners the encouragement that they need and aren't getting from the Williamsburg Hasidim. I shout out names that runners wear on their tops, and give a Hebrew cheer to runners that are identifiably Jewish or Israeli. This year I had purchased a shofar to use on Rosh Hashana, and I blew teki'ot for the runners. A policeman nearby remarked to another that it's the "most annoying sound in the world" and he'd never known where it came from until now. Perhaps I'm just a bad ba'al toke'a, but I've heard worse. One wonders how long he'd been living in New York not to know what a shofar is. I told him that before sirens were invented that was how people sounded the alarm. The cop is entitled to his opinion, but he could have kept it to himself while wearing the uniform.


When most of the runners had passed, I jogged a mile or two on the sidewalk, past the Williamsburg Bridge. I was now in the "other" Williamsburg, what used to be the Hispanic part but is now increasingly populated by "hipsters," young artists and such. There was a noticeable lessening of tension. People lined the sidewalks cheering, they stood on rooftops, terraces and fire escapes cheering. They hung out of windows cheering. Bands set themselves up on the sidewalk playing drums and music. They were happy to see us. We [I'm moving easily from the third person to the first because I still identify strongly as a runner] were happy to see them and hear them. What a difference between Hipster Williamsburg and Hasidic Williamsburg. It's the difference between feeling alive and feeling dead. Where would you rather be and who would you rather be with?

From the 2006 race in Williamsburg

Yahrzeit

For Gentiles tomorrow, Tuesday September 23, will be just another day, perhaps marked as the first full day of autumn (in the Northern Hemisphere, spring down under). For us it is 23 Elul, the seventh yahrzeit on our calendar for some 3000 good Americans whose lives were snuffed out by Islamic barbarians who still seek our destruction. A time to reflect on the blessings that accrue to us in a land of freedom, blessings that are not without cost; as President Kennedy said, "The price of freedom is always high and Americans have always paid it." As Rosh Hashana approaches, we must ask ourselves if we made maximum use of the freedom and security that we have in this country, and if we demonstrated the appropriate hakarat hatov for the brave men and women who keep it free. If you see a soldier, police officer or firefighter, take the time to make him or her feel appreciated. Observe basic safety with all the candles, hot stoves and such that will be in use during the coming holidays. Our firefighters and Hatzalah volunteers work hard enough; they don't need extra business and they do deserve to spend time with their own families.

אל מלא רחמים שוכן במרומים המצא מנוחה נכונה תחת כנפי השכינה במעלות קדושים וטהורים כזוהר הרקיע מזהירים לנשמות אלפי אנשים נשים וטף שנהרגו ושנשחטו ושנחנקו ושנשרפו ושנקברו חיים על ידי הערבים הרוצחים ימח שמם בעבור שאנחנו מתפללים בעד הזכרת נשמתם בגן עדן תהא מנוחתם לכן בעל הרחמים יסתירם בסתר כנפיו לעולמים ויצרור בצרור החיים את נשמתם ה' הוא נחלתם וינוחו בשלום על משכבם ונאמר אמן.