Shout It Out

   We just finished the roller coaster ride of joy and sorrow that is the counting of the Omer.  During that time we read Parshat B’hukotai (Lev. 26:3 – 27: 34) with its promises of abundant blessings if we are faithful to the Torah and dire warnings of terrible curses if we are not.  In 1945, as World War II was drawing to a close and German concentration camps were being liberated by the British and Americans (the ones further east were liberated by the Soviets), this section was read wherever possible.  The next year, with all of Europe liberated, many Jewish ex-inmates were housed in Displaced Person (DP) camps, where they were provided with food, medical care and housing fit for human habitation and, we all hoped, enabled to start new lives elsewhere.  It was a time of joy and hope; as Jews we refused to wallow in victimhood.  Men and women met and married; babies were born.  A new edition of the Vilna Talmud was published.  Religious services were held, and about a year after liberation Parshat B’hukotai was read again.  Traditionally, the reader reads the curses sotto voce, in a soft voice, indicating their extreme unpleasantness.  But this time, as I learned in the Zionist youth movement Bnei Akiva, the reader shouted the curses out.  When asked why he departed from the custom, the reader answered that all the curses that he read were fulfilled during the war, and now he shouted them out as a challenge to God.  As You brought about the curses, now fulfill the second part.  Bring on the blessings.  אל תפל דבר מכל אשר דברת.  Let not one word fail from all that You have spoken (cf. Esther 6:10).  And three years later, almost to the day, the State of Israel came into being and fulfilled the blessings beyond our wildest dreams.  Our land and people were restored to their former greatness and then some, agriculturally and militarily.  More Torah is being studied there than ever before in our history:  כי מציון תצא  תורה – out of Zion shall come forth Torah (Is. 2:3).  Israel is the start-up nation where all manner of new hi-tech inventions are innovated, and from there they emanate as blessings to all humanity in medicine, agriculture and almost every other field of human endeavor (cf. Gen. 12: 2-3).  May our state, the work of God from the beginning, grow from strength to strength and culminate in the building of the third Beit Mikdash (Holy Temple in Jerusalem) and the finalization of the ge’ula (Redemption)  speedily and in our time.

Hag Sameah

   My blog's been quiet lately.  Work, winter depression. . . But I'm still around and hope to be posting more soon.  Wishing all my readers a happy month of Iyar, with Yom Ha'atzma'ut and Yom Yerushalayim.

  Here's a video to put y'all in the mood:

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.

Salute to Israel

Last Sunday was the annual Salute to Israel Parade in New York. Jewish students and others marched up Fifth Avenue amid song, dance, floats and general rejoicing. Forgotten for a moment were all Israel's troubles and all the infighting within the Jewish community here, as we came together k'ish ehad b'lev ehad (well, almost) to celebrate Israel's 62nd birthday.











Friends of the Israel Defense Forces



















Israel to the Rescue - Showcasing humanitarian aid provided by Israel to disaster victims the world over

Hang 'em high - The usual traitors from Neturei Karta were there along with their Arab and leftist camp followers.







I have been at this parade in various capacities almost since its inception. While in high school, I marched either with my school or with Bnei Akiva. In the 1970s the parade was arranged by the American Zionist Youth Foundation, and I was among the college and graduate students serving as volunteer marshals. Later on the American Zionist Youth Foundation dropped its sponsorship in a spat over participation by Beth Simchat Torah, New York's gay and lesbian synagogue. That synagogue remains excluded after Orthodox groups threatened to withdraw if Beth Simchat Torah was there, and sponsorship of the parade passed to an ad hoc "Israel Tribute Committee." After decades of amateurism including groups stepping off hours after their scheduled time, the committee last year hired a professional "event organizer," and everything went off without a hitch. This year the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) took over the parade, and again it was professionally run. I kind of miss the spontaneity of its student-run days, but in today's security and budget climate "fashionably late" is no longer viable. I would like to see Beth Simchat Torah somehow included, perhaps among the other Reform synagogues without being identified as gay and lesbian. We Orthodox always marched with all kinds of avaryanim (transgressors) and never "checked tzitzit;" why should gay Jews be an exception?
May we all live and be well, and may next year's parade be even grander.

Reflections on Yom Ha-shoah and Yom Ha-atzmaut

This year I was privileged to be on the committee that arranged the purchase and erection of a brass plaque memorializing the Holocaust on the wall in the lobby of my synagogue, Kingsway Jewish Center. We held a solemn ceremony on Sunday 27 Nisan to dedicate the plaque. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren of survivors filed into the sanctuary with lighted yahrzeit candles and placed them on a table in the front, and a child survivor (just about the only survivors still with us were children at the time) who is now a prominent educator at Ramaz spoke to us. The event was uplifting in a bittersweet way but for one incident that marred it. At the collation following the ceremony, our Congressman Anthony Wiener came uninvited and addressed us, as he addresses many similar gatherings where he is invited. As some might know, the Congressman, a Jew, is engaged to be married to a young Muslim woman. Knowing that this would generate negativity, we decided not to invite him but he showed up anyway and was allowed to address us. Instead of showing an elected official the respect to which his position entitles him, one congregant who shall go nameless confronted him on his personal life and Congressman Wiener took it personally and reacted accordingly, challenging the congregant to come up close and "say it to my face," when in fact he did say it to his face, maybe twenty feet away in front of a roomful of people. In the end Mr. Wiener's security people removed him for his own safety before he completed his address. There was plenty of blame to go around for this fiasco. The congregant who initiated the confrontation should have known better. Intermarriage is unfortunately a makkat medina, a nationwide epidemic. About half of all Jewish marriages in the United States are to non-Jews. It has long been an unwritten rule in American politics that a candidate's personal life is off limits. The congregant was and is at liberty to vote against Mr. Wiener, to persuade others to vote against him, and even to run against him should he seek reelection this fall. As for Mr. Wiener, he should have known that there might be a negative reaction at an Orthodox congregation owing to his personal circumstance and stayed away from a gathering to which he was not invited. Having made an appearance and experienced precisely the sort of negativity we feared, he acted like a twelve-year-old. One would think that an experienced politician would have a thicker skin. Instead of issuing what reasonable men might regard as a challenge to fight, look the fellow in the eye and tell him that his choice of a mate is "none of your business." So an inspiring Yom Ha-shoah gathering ended in embarrassment to our congregation and, arguably, hillul Hashem.

That evening I attended the Yom Ha-shoah commemoration at my alma mater, Yeshivah of Flatbush, as I do every year. We heard from Deborah Steiner-Van Rooyen, author of Dove on a Barbed Wire, about her search for and discovery of her cousin and lost family. And the following Monday evening I attended the Yom Ha'atzma'ut celebration at Yeshivah of Flatbush. These gatherings never lost their power to touch my heart and soul, but I'm noticing an unsettling phenomenon as the years go by. These gatherings used to be held in the high school auditorium, which was packed to the rafters. Standing room only. They had to open up the Bet Midrash across the hall and set up a sound system to accommodate the overflow. Now there are plenty of empty seats in the high school auditorium on Yom Ha-shoah, while the Yom Ha-atzma'ut celebration is held in the much smaller Bet Midrash in the elementary school building, and still there are empty seats. It seems to confirm what recent studies purportedly show, that young Jewish people today feel unconnected to Israel and Judaism. Not disconnected, not critical, but unconnected. They just don't care. Israel has no significance for them, good or bad. Judaism is something they can take or leave, and many are leaving. Perhaps this is just a function of Brooklyn becoming thoroughly ferkhnyocked and the khnyocks both here and in Israel being divorced from anything having to do with the state, its symbols (you seldom see the blue-and-white flag in haredi neighborhoods) and its commemmorations. As we read in the Passover Haggada, ilu haya sham, lo haya nig'al. They were there, they witnessed what we witnessed, but they are not affected by it, one way or the other. But my peregrinations on the planet convince me otherwise. As a teacher in New York City's public schools, I remember when every high school in a Jewish area offered Hebrew, culminating in a Regents examination that satisfied the foreign language requirement. Jewish students in the public high schools may not have been particularly religiously observant (though prior to the 1960s many were) but they felt a cultural connection to the Jewish people and wanted to learn its language. No more. Hebrew in the public schools is now a rarity, and the Regents exams are not posted online as other exams are, so that the questions can be reused. The Histadrut Ivrith of America was once a vibrant organization promoting Hebrew culture through the newspaper Hadoar and the monthly magazine Lamishpaha, where I had several items published. Early this decade both publications folded and the Histadrut Ivrith itself ceased to exist. The people who benefited from it - mostly students and growing families on budgets - lacked the financial resources to keep it afloat and the people with the money couldn't care less. The Birnbaum Siddur and Mahzorim, edited to conform to modern Hebrew grammar and with mistakes in "traditional" siddurim corrected, is difficult if not impossible to obtain, and its publisher, Hebrew Publishing Company, seems to have disappeared.
I wish I could end on a more cheerful note, but I just don't see where this is going to end in anything but disaster for Jewish life in America.

Hag Sameah

Wishing all my readers a joyous Yom Ha'atzmaut. If you're in Brooklyn come to Yeshivah of Flatbush at 919 East 10 Street for a proper Ma'ariv with Hallel led by my principal emeritus Rabbi David Eliach. It will be followed by an Israeli cafe night for a nominal contribution.
Never mind the people knocking us. We've been kicking butt since 1948 and we'll continue to kick butt til Mashiach comes. Obama & Co. only think they're in charge. We know who really is. Click here.

V'Nahafokh Hu

And it was reversed. . . .(Esther 9:1)

No, this is not a leftover Purim shpiel. We are about to celebrate Pesah, zman heruteinu, the season of our freedom. Those of us who daven Nusakh Sefarad will recite Hallel tonight and tomorrow night. I never heard a good explanation of why we say Hallel at night specifically on Pesah, and certainly why Nusakh Sefarad says it and Nusakh Ashkenaz not. So let me venture an explanation at least of the first question. The miracle of Pesah occurred at night. "And it came to pass at midnight, that Hashem struck every firstborn in Egypt. . . ." Rashi comments that Moshe told Pharaoh that the plague would strike about midnight, so that if the Egyptian astronomers erred in the calculation of midnight they would not be able to claim that the plague did not happen as Moshe said it would and therefore it was not Hashem's doing. But the plague actually occurred at the stroke of midnight, as the Jews were eating the sheep, which the Egyptians worshiped as a deity. We are also told that even the firstborn of males were struck down, and in a place as licentious as ancient Egypt only God could know their identity. Thus there could be no room for doubt that the plague was God's doing, and that His people were safe and secure as destruction was abroad in the land in the middle of the night.

Bayamim ha-hem bazman ha-zeh. As it was then, so it is now. We now have, praise God, another holiday when we will recite Hallel at night, a holiday that is also zman heruteinu, Yom Ha'atzmaut. And here too, the miracle occurred at night, for at the stroke of midnight of May 14-15, 1948, 6 Iyar 5708, the Union Jack came down for the last time and the Jewish people assumed among the peoples of the earth the sovereignty to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle it, but which it had not exercised since Hasmonean times in the first century B.C.E. That's right, the Sixth of Iyar. That fateful midnight occurred on Shabbat that year, and to prevent desecration of Shabbat the secular, socialist provisional government that had nothing but contempt for everything holy decided to jump the gun and declare the state on Friday afternoon, against the advice of the Americans and all the experts who were telling us that it was not the right time, and that the state, if declared, could not possibly survive. Hence, Yom Ha'atzmaut is celebrated on the Fifth of Iyar, except when the celebration or that of Yom Hazikaron the previous day might engender Sabbath desecration. Such will be the case this year, when to forestall preparations on Shabbat for Yom Hazikaron on Sunday, Yom Hazikaron will be commemmorated on Monday, with Yom Ha'atzmaut on Tuesday, the Sixth of Iyar, when the state actually came into being. I learned this from a booklet sent several years ago my Yeshivat Merkaz Harav.

On the second night of Pesah we begin counting Sefirat ha-Omer, the seven-week period beginning with Pesah and building up to Shavu'ot. Most of us will observe the sefirah, or part of it, as a period of semi-mourning for the disaster that befell us in 135 C.E. when the Roman legions brutally crushed our last hope for independence. Rabbi Akiva and his students figured prominently in that hope, since Rabbi Akiva supported Bar Kokhba's revolt against Rome, and sent his students to fight in Bar Kokhba's army. It is no accident that the Religious Zionist youth movement is named for Rabbi Akiva. And now, here we are with our flag flying proudly over our country, an army that kicks butt, the best flyboys on earth, an economy that is the envy of the Middle East, a flourishing democracy unique in that region, and where are the ancient Romans? Sefirat Ha'omer, before it became a time of mourning, was an occasion for intense joy. It was harvest season, bracketed by the bringing of the omer of barley on 16 Nissan and the two loaves of wheat bread seven weeks later. And now the fertility of our soil, lost during nineteen centuries of foreign occupation, given up on by one commission after another of foreign rulers, was restored as soon as Eretz Yisrael was watered again with Jewish sweat. For this we are to mourn? What is happening here is the reverse of what happens to an avel on Shabbat. Shiva is suspended, the avel dresses for Shabbat and goes to synagogue, publicly he is not showing any signs of mourning, but inwardly he grieves for his departed relative as a mourner. Today's sefirah occasions outward signs of mourning while inside we experience the joy of freedom, of our soil's fertility, of renewed physical strength as we labor on the land and bring forth its fruits.
May we soon see this process of ge'ulah come to its glorious conclusion with the bringing of the Omer and the two loaves of bread amid joyous celebration.

Hag Kasher V'sameah.

Israel Parade

Last week I attended New York's annual Salute to Israel Parade, as I have almost every year since 1967. It went off without a hitch and the weather was perfect. Last year some groups stepped off two hours late and marchers and spectators alike were annoyed with the delays. This time the organizers hired a professional "event manager" and everything was on time - no mean feat for a Jewish function!

My first time at the parade was with Yeshivah of Flatbush as a student, in the tense atmosphere immediately preceding the Six Day War. In the following years I would march with either Yeshivah of Flatbush or Bnei Akiva. Then I marshalled for a few years when the parade was put on by the American Zionist Youth Foundation. Now an "old man," I watch from the sidelines.

As they have for the past several years, the idiotic traitors of Neturei Karta picketed the parade along with their Arab masters and assorted leftists.

"Black" bastards giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Can't you vomit?

Luckily for her and the Neturei Karta traitors, they were protected by a phalanx of New York City police.

The thousands of happy marchers paid little heed to these haters. This year being the centennial of Tel Aviv, many schools marched with banners heralding that milestone, and many floats celebrated it.

"Tel Aviv Green and Clean"

They say the Conservative and Reform movements are dying. Someone forgot to tell these high-spirited kids from Solomon Schechter of Bergen County. Many contingents from the Conservative Solomon Schechter schools marched with pride.

My son's alma mater was one of the few Brooklyn yeshivot participating.

To those who question our spirit, our perseverance and our commitment to Israel:

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

Yom Ha'atzmaut 5769

Last week I spent the evening and morning of Yom Ha'atzmaut as I usually do, at my alma mater, Yeshivah of Flatbush. Before Ma'ariv a teacher spoke about the significance of the day. He cited Rav Kook, who taught that the first war waged by the Jews in the conquest of Eretz Yisrael was against Sihon Melekh Heshbon. If we had put our faith in rational calculations - heshbon - we would not have won, not then and not now (see earlier post). A hazan (cantor) who also graduated the Yeshivah led us in Ma'ariv, including Hallel and the conclusion modeled after the end of Yom Kippur, as prescribed by the Israeli Rabbanut. After tfila we had an "Israeli cafe night" that was, if anything, too successful in that there were too many people for the available space. Much money was raised for Todah L'Tzahal.
The following morning tfila again followed the Rabbanut's prescription, including Hallel and the haftara for the last day of Pesah read with ta'amim but without a brakha. A festive breakfast followed, a tradition at Flatbush that I first saw as a student in 1967 (see earlier post), the twentieth anniversary of the state. 41 years later, all but one of my teachers have either retired or passed on. The students, and in some cases their parents, were not even born when I was a student there. Nevertheless, they would pull me into their dancing circles and I was able to keep up. Sometimes one kid would link arms with me for a two-person whirl. I am still able to feel the joy of Yom Ha'atzmaut as only a strong, healthy man can.
In the afternoon I suited up in a home-made sleeveless shirt with "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" and the Israeli flag across the chest and "61 YEARS YOUNG" on the back and ran through Brooklyn's Cobble Hill neighborhood and Atlantic Avenue. This is traditionally the borough's Arab stronghold, though like most neighborhoods in New York it has become considerably homogenized. I sometimes run there "out of uniform" during my lunch breaks at work, and I see Arabic-looking people going in and out of mosques, Arabic bookstores and the like. One might wonder why I would go out of my way to do something some might consider provocative, even looking for trouble. I certainly had no need to assert my right as an American to walk in any neighborhood in America; nobody was contesting that right. We learn the answer from Hannukah, like Yom Ha'atzmaut a time set aside to thank God for restoring Jewish independence through the victory of "the [relatively] weak over the strong, the few over the many." It is not enough to light Hannukah candles on the kitchen table as we do with Shabbat candles, though that is what we do in times of mortal danger, God forbid. We have to light them in a window facing outward, when people passing by can see. Pirsumei nisa is not preaching to the choir; it has to be "in your face," projecting outward to precisely those who would make themselves our adversaries. But on another level, our adversaries too benefit from the miracle. The ge'ula is not only for us; it's for the whole world, urbi et orbi. Emanations from our reborn state spread out and envelop the world in new strategies for arid-zone agriculture, new medical discoveries, new computer tech, the list goes on and on, as in the time of the Beit Ha-mikdash, where it is said that if the Romans had only known of the blessings they were getting from it they would have posted guards around it day and night.
I met up with a volunteer from Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for non-motorized (bicycling, walking, running) transport, doing a survey of traffic violations. He asked me where I got the shirt and we exchanged Hag Sameah salutes. And, barukh Hashem, I came to absolutely no harm. Nobody did anything, nobody said anything. It was as if God cast a spell on the Arabs and kept them in their homes (see Bereshit 35:5). I am reminded of what happened and did not happen over twenty years ago, when my newborn daughter developed a serious infection and for a while things were touch-and-go. She was in Long Island College Hospital, in Cobble Hill. It was summertime, and I ran to the hospital to be with my wife and daughter. The run took me down Atlantic Avenue, which was more Arabic then than it is today. I don't remember if I was wearing my Israeli flag shirt, but I wore my kippa proudly on my head, which at the time had enough hair to hold it on with a couple of bobby pins. I might have collected a dirty look or two, but nobody touched a hair of my head. And when I reached the hospital I turned to God: Okay, I conquered my fear and ran down Atlantic Avenue to show these people how You are giving Your people health and strength (Tehilim 29:11). Now You conquer whatever is bugging You and give me a healthy child. And He did.

Yom Hazikaron

Today is Israel's Memorial Day, celebrated the day before Yom Ha'atzmaut. The sirens wail, drivers stop and leave their cars and everybody stands still for a minute to remember our fallen heroes. Here is a video from Arutz Sheva of part of the commemmoration service at the Kotel:





http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131088


Memories come back today of my son's first two Yemai Zikaron, when I was a graduate student and his primary caregiver. I would open my Tikun, take him in my arms, hold him close and read Akedat Yitzhak with the trop for Rosh Hashanah, also of course known as Yom Hazikaron. I would start in a soft voice but, without planning it that way, finish in a voice so strong you could almost hear it down the block. Nearly two decades later, my "baby" found it in his heart to go to Israel and join Zahal (the Israeli Army) during the second intifada. He saw action in Ramallah and, barukh Hashem, came back safe and sound. I thank God for the privilege of raising such a boy, and know that, ad meah v'esrim (to 120 years) he will be in a place where his father will never be.
The timing of this bittersweet day is something we Americans can learn from. Back in the 1970s we moved almost all our national holidays from their historical dates to Mondays to have a long weekend and an excuse for a picnic or a shopping spree. As a result, today's children know next to nothing about what our holidays are all about. Memorial Day in particular was rooted in the Civil War Battle of Gettysberg. We had to memorize the Gettysberg Address in school (I did not go to a haredi yeshiva!). How many young Americans today even know about Gettysberg or have any inkling of the blood and sacrifice those who came before us put forth so that America would remain whole - and a beacon of freedom for all the world? How many of the spoiled kids we see at "peace" demonstrations take the time to reflect on the price better men than they paid so that those kids can publicly malign their country and not be clapped into jail or worse? I enjoy a day off with warm weather at least as much as the next person, but if Memorial Day had remained on its original date we would have to confront the fact that freedom is not, never was and (until Mashiach comes) never will be free, and we would be less able to take our freedom for granted.
Tonight iy"h we will gather together for Ma'ariv with the Yom Tov nigun, sound the shofar and rejoice in song and dance at the end of the hillul Hashem of Jewish weakness and the beginning of the ge'ula. Hag Sameah - lige'ula sheleima.

Man proposes. . . .

From reading the papers and hearing the news accounts, one gets the impression that we are living in a time of great anxiety regarding the future of Israel. In fact, anxiety has surrounded the State since its inception, with the possible exception of the time immediately following the Six Day War in 1967. When the British were about to leave in 1948, and the surrounding Arab armies were gearing up for war, all the experts advised against declaring independence. There was no way, they said, that the tiny state-to-be could hold out against such overwhelming force. At the insistence of David Ben-Gurion, who would become the State’s first prime minster, independence was declared. As predicted, seven Arab states declared war the following day and invaded the new State of Israel. Again, the experts advised withdrawing to a tight defense line along the coast between Tel-Aviv and Haifa. There was no hope, they said, of the joke of a state granted by the United Nations partition plan prevailing. They were right about the partition borders being a bad joke. They were right about the plans of our enemies, but God and Ben-Gurion had other plans. Every town, every settlement was to be defended. Not only did the State prevail; it expanded. The Etzion Bloc and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem were lost for nineteen years, but Israel fought its enemies to an armistice on all fronts, an armistice that held for nineteen years while Israel grew economically and absorbed the Jews expelled from Arab countries with little but the clothes on their backs – no sixty-year refugee problem there.

Now the experts are at it again. From the United Nations, Europe, Russia, and President Obama's administration, the voices are unanimous. Israel must negotiate with terrorists irrevocably committed to its destruction. A "two-state solution" is inevitable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assures the Arab world that the United States will energetically promote a two-state solution. This is the same Clinton who kissed Mrs. Yassir Arafat after the latter had accused Israel of deliberately infecting Arab children with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Not a word of protest from Mrs. Clinton. The same administration proposes nearly a billion dollars in aid to rebuild Gaza, never mind that the money will go, like all money given to Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, into the pockets of corrupt officials or to bankroll terror attacks.

It should not surprise us that the nations of the world are ready to install a terror state on Israel's border. They foolishly think that by throwing Israel to the wolves they will save themselves. Sacrifice the Little Satan and the terrorists will turn away from the Great Satan. But even among Israelis there is an air of resignation and inevitability. Foreign Minister-designate Avigdor Lieberman of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party supports a "Palestinian" State and, incredibly, is prepared to trade Arab-populated land in pre-1967 Israel to such a state in "exchange" for Israeli settlements beyond the "Green Line."

There is one ray of light illuminating the darkness. Purim (14 Adar) is the yahrzeit of Ha-rav Zvi Yehuda Hakohen Kook זצ''ל, son of the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook. Shortly after I came back from Israel in 1974, I saw a wall poster in Boro Park (!) written by him. It was headed, in big bold Hebrew letters, "Lo taguru," – Do not be afraid. Having graduated Yeshivah of Flatbush, where all Jewish subjects are taught in Hebrew, I drank its contents in thirstily and had no trouble understanding it. The Rav's son proclaimed that none of the "territories" may be given away. Not a grain of sand. Not because it would be strategically foolish, though it would be. Not because our enemies would interpret any "concession" as a sign of weakness and act accordingly, though they would. Eretz Yisrael is God's land and it is assur – forbidden by the Torah – to give any of it to Gentiles once it comes into our possession. We were to proclaim that message to other Jews and to the world – urbi et orbi – unapologetically and without fear. I later learned that the Lubavitcher Rebbe זצ''ל said much the same thing to anyone who would listen. Later still, after studying the philosophy of Rav Kook on my own, I learned of the drasha given by R. Zvi Yehuda on Yom Ha-atzmaut of 5727 (1967), where he lamented the Israeli people's resignation to the loss of so much of Eretz Yisrael. Only three weeks later that drasha would be looked back on in wonder, for on the day after the hag the run-up to the Six Day War began. The Arabs had their plans – drive the Jews into the sea. The world had its plans – sit back and leave Israel to its fate. The entire Jewish world was fearful; Israel would be outmanned and outgunned, as always. But God had His plans. On that day, when the enemies of the Jews had hoped to defeat them, it was turned around, and the Jews defeated their enemies – whenever I read the Megilla and come to that pasuk, I think of 26 Iyar 5727, the first of those fateful days. Wars are supposed to take years; the one in which the United States is currently engaged has been dragging on for eight. This war took all of six days. Mi shama ka-zot – who ever heard of anything like it? When it was over, Israel had quadrupled in size and Hevron, Shekhem, Yeriho, all the places whose absence from the State R. Zvi Yehuda lamented, were in Jewish hands for the first time in 2000 years. The world stood dumbfounded. The Jews had light, joy, gladness and honor – until one faithless government after another squandered what should have been the run-up to the final ge'ula.

So, lo taguru. Do not be afraid. President Obama, Secretary Clinton, the United States, the autocrats in the Kremkin, the Arab oil barons, - what they say does not matter. They only think they're in charge. We are to heed the One who really is in charge. Shine the light of R. Zvi Yehuda Kook first on our own people, then on the world. Let it chase away the darkness. There is no occupation. Eretz Yisrael – all of it – is ours. Irrevocably ours. Not by the generosity of the nations but from the Hand of God. You do not occupy your own territory. You do not annex your own territory. You settle it, build it and make it flourish. The world's two-state solution is really a three-state solution. There already is a "Palestinian" state. It's called Jordan and it sits on 80% of mandatory Palestine. Golda Meir was right; there is room for only one state between the river and the sea, and that state is the Jewish State of Israel. If the Arabs there wish to be citizens of Jordan, that can be worked out. If they want to rename Jordan Palestine, we won't stand in their way. If America wants to pour a billion dollars down a rat hole, let it pour the money on AIG and Citigroup. But Eretz Yisrael is not up for sale, barter or exchange. It is ours and ours forever. We have the Word of God on it, and we can take that to the bank. The banks have been lending money lately on a whole lot less.

Stop the Clock

I am a proud member of the United Federation of Teachers, the union representing New York City's public school teachers. The following scenario often plays out in labor negotiations. The union has a strict "no contract no work" policy, an agreement is in sight, nobody wants a strike and the deadline is a few mintues away. Both sides agree to "stop the clock" and keep talking. The next morning everybody wakes up to the news that a contract was reached and there will not be a strike.
Something similar happened at the Kingsway Jewish Center yesterday, Yom Kippur. Services were taking longer than expected. We had an hour or less for Ne'ilah. The rabbi led the services instead of the hazan, perhaps in an effort to finish before the fast ended at 7:11. It didn't work; when the "deadline" came we were deep into Selihot. What to do? We stopped the clock. If anybody was angry that the fast was over but Ne'ilah was not, nobody said anything. Few men got up and left. We were absorbed in davening to the extent that we weren't paying attention to our hunger, much like runners in the last mile of the New York City Marathon not noticing their fatigue for all the cheering. The final teki'ah gedolah sounded at about 7:30, followed by a spirited hand-clapping round of Leshanah Ha-ba'ah B'Yerushalayim, followed by Ma'ariv and only then did we go home. Of course, we don't know what kind of "contract" was reached. But we "went the extra mile" (sorry to borrow a metaphor from what Christians call the New Testament), asking Hashem to do the same for us.

May we all have a happy and healthy new year. May we see only good things for ourselves, for Israel and for the Jewish people. The next teki'ah gedolah that we hear will be sounded on the night of Yom Ha'atzma'ut; the end of Ma'ariv being modeled after the conclusion of Yom Kippur. It is also followed by joyous singing of Leshanah Ha-ba'ah B'Yerushalayim. This year, may the shofar be blown by Mashiah on the roof of the rebuilt Beit Hamikdash, televised live via satellite for all the world to see and hear.

Robert F. Kennedy (1922-1968)

Forty years ago yesterday (June 5), Robert F. (“Bobby”) Kennedy, Senator from New York, brother of the late President John F. Kennedy and himself a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination, was shot in the head shortly after winning the California primary. Despite frantic efforts to save him, he succumbed to his wounds shortly after 4:00 A.M. on June 6. New York time. Like his brother before, he was a charismatic leader who captured the imagination of the people. His murder, following closely on that of Martin Luther King two months before, shook the country to its core. Jewish Americans had more reason to mourn: The Senator was outspokenly supportive of Israel and the assassin was a Jordanian-Palestinian, Sirhan Sirhan, who acted on the first anniversary (on the civil calendar) of the outbreak of the Six Day War. He was tried, convicted, sentenced (on Yom Ha-atzmaut) to death in California’s gas chamber, and had his sentence commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated all death sentences up to that time. He remains in prison in California to this day. The only indication he ever gave of his motive was blurted out as he was being captured, “I did it for my country.”

Two days later his body was flown to New York, where he was eulogized at St. Patrick’s Cathedral by his one surviving brother, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy:
My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: “Some… see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.”

From New York he was carried by train to Washington, D.C. where he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery close to the grave of his brother, the late President. Thousands upon thousands came to each station to catch a glimpse of his casket. Photojournalist Paul Fusco took extensive pictures of the scenes that show America as it was forty years ago, and his work will be on exhibit at the Danziger Projects in Manhattan through the end of July.

The decade of the 1960s was a time when young people the world over dreamed things that never were and said why not. We dreamed of an end to apartheid, both here and in South Africa, the country that invented the word, and it happened. We dreamed of a world at peace and, for better or worse, brought about the end of the war in Vietnam. We dreamed of social and economic equality for women and, rightly or wrongly, today it is largely a reality. We Jews have a long history of dreaming things that never were and saying why not: At the turn of the previous century Theodore Herzl dreamed of the reestablishment of a Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael, which had not existed for nearly two millennia, and with the grace of God we turned the dream into reality. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda dreamed of the Hebrew language once more being on the lips of children, and that too is a reality, both in Israel and throughout the Diaspora. For nineteen years since the establishment of the State, when the Old City of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria were in enemy hands, Jews with vision dreamed of our heartland coming under Jewish control, and that too happened, with the Kotel being opened for Jewish worship on Shavu’ot of 5727 (1967 C.E.), exactly one week after its liberation by the Israel Defense Forces in the Six Day War. And then of course there is our ultimate dream, the final liberation of the Jewish people and the perfection of the world with the coming of Mashiah. May that too become reality in our time.

Salute to Israel Parade

This Sunday, June 1, 27 Iyar, is the Salute to Israel Parade. It will be held rain or shine, as always. It is important that everybody who is able to go goes. Especially in this political year, it shows all the candidates that we care about Israel. It also gives yeshivot an opportunity to showcase their students' artistry in costumes and floats. I usually stand near the starting point at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, where I and others can let the Arab counterdemonstrators and their Neturei Karta lapdogs know what we think of them.

As people giving aid and comfort to our enemies, aka traitors, each and every one of these black-hatted bastards deserves to hang from the lamppost. Lacking the power to carry out the appropriate punishment, we can and must ostracise them socially. Do not attend their functions or invite them to ours. Do not do business with them, and so forth. As long as man is a social animal, social ostracism is a potent weapon against these creeps.

The parade is followed by a concert in Central Park. Security will be tight (of course), bags are checked and lines are long. But as far as I know there is mixed seating so you can bring your girl/boyfriend. The next day, of course, is Yom Yerushalayim, celebrating 41 years of a unified capital despite the efforts of our enemies and defeatists among us to redivide it. Hag Sameah!

Yom Ha-zikron and Yom Ha'atzma'ut

Since 5 Iyar comes on Shabbat this year and the Israeli government does not want holiday observances to engender hillul Shabbat (they don't give a damn about Torah, right?), Yom Ha'atzma'ut is celebrated tomorrow. That makes today Yom Ha-zikaron, Israel's Memorial Day. As with Yom Ha-shoah last week, air raid sirens wail and everybody stands still in mourning. Even drivers on the road stop their cars, get out and stand. The whole country is stock still for a minute, except in haredi neighborhoods; what do they care for our national observances? But there is a difference between last week and today. Last week resembled Tisha B'Av - kulo maror. Today is bittersweet - matza and maror mixed and eaten together. We mourn our losses, since to us but not to our enemies every life is a precious gift from God. But at the same time we rejoice in having children (male and female) who are strong, brave and willing to fight. There is a qualitative difference between walking helplessly into a gas chamber and falling in battle - dying on one's feet so that the rest of us won't have to live on our knees. They are the guarantors of "Never Again" and I thank God for the privilege of raising a son who heard the call from across the ocean, went over and served in Zahal during the second intifada, when he could have been enjoying the party scene at college.
Tonight the sirens will wail again, and we will begin to celebrate Yom Ha'atzma'ut. Ma'ariv with the Yom Tov niggun, Hallel at night and again tomorrow morning, the haftara of Od Hayom B'Nov (same as the eighth day of Pesah, which Israelis don't celebrate) in anticipation of the completion of the ge'ula. Don't let anything interfere with the joy of having lived to see the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. May the process that began 60 years ago reach its glorious conclusion speedily in our time.

"Mi-yagon l'simha ume-eivel l'yom tov" - From sadness to rejoicing and from mourning to holiday

The sfira is about to conclude with Shavu'ot this week. It is traditionally a time of semi-mourning when we abstain from haricuts, live musical performances and the like, but it wasn't always that way. Before the hurban, this time was one of intense joy as we celebrated the barley and wheat harvests and prepared to bring bikkurim up to the beit hamikdash. Perhaps in keeping with athalta d'geula, the mourning is giving way to joy as we celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim at this time of year.
I first experienced the joy of Yom Ha'atzmaut in 1967 at Yeshivah of Flatbush. I was a freshman and had worked my butt off all year like I never worked before. Coming into the lunch room festooned with flags and banners I knew that it was all worth it (a feeling that would be reinforced a bit later with a 96 on the biology Regents, an event that would set me on a collision course with "gedolim" 40 years later). The next day, joy gave way to apprehension as Egypt, Jordan and Syria prepared to destroy the medina. Soon the Six Day War broke out and, praise God, ended with victory on all fronts and all of Yerushalayim in our hands for the first time since Bar Kokhba. We were all drunk on joy, and that joy combined with the male hormones flooding my 15-year-old body (barukh shelo asani isha) made for a heady brew. Our neighborhood's streets became full of kippot srugot, even on people who had never been observant but who now wished to identify as Jews. At the time, wearing a kippa on Brooklyn's streets still made one a walking target for rowdy Gentiles, but who cared? Jackie Mason notwithstanding, we didn't walk around with chips on our shoulders, but anybody who would dare knock off our kippot would have been in for a butt whipping. Having been a sickly child, I suddenly stopped getting sick. Was it hashgaha pratit or the normal changes of adolescence? I had begun lifting weights several weeks earlier; what might have been a brief infatuation became a lifelong passion for strength and fitness. I would walk with a confident swagger (and walk fast - nobody could keep up with me) that had people saluting as I passed.
Every year since I would celebrate Yom Ha-atzmaut either with Bnei Akiva or at Yeshivah of Flatbush, until 1991 when I was sitting shiva for my father a"h. It was an experience I wouldn't wish on a dog, made worse by haredi visitors who made no mention of the holiday. I broke into the Yom Tov nigun at shaharit after ha-mahazir sh'khinato l'Tzion, washed for a seuda at lunch time and said shir ha-ma'alot before Birkat Ha-mazon. If I had my druthers Yom Ha-atzmaut would suspend shiva the way Shabbat does. By then I was teaching at Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall H.S., but I promised myself that, work or no work, Yom Ha'atzmaut would never be business as usual. Teaching on that day would be useless anyhow; I'm higher than a kite. I take the day off and return to my alma mater to daven and take part in the festive breakfast with lots of singing and dancing; even now I keep up with dancing high school kids. Being a marathon runner, I do a pirsumei nisa run, donning something that would identify me as Jewish (e.g. a singlet emblazoned with the IDF logo) and running through a neighborhood (Crown Heights this year) where we are not exactly loved. Thank God I came to no harm, but I got bemused looks from hasidim when I'd yell out "hag sameah." Sometime during the day I read Shir Ha-shirim, and I always cry when I get to 5:2, kol dodi dofeq, the tragedy of God knocking and Israel refusing to open the door. Is that not our tragedy since 1967, God knocking and we not opening the door, God putting the pedal to the metal and we timid Jews slamming on the brakes? As the saying goes, you can take the Jew out of the galut but you can't take the galut out of the Jew.

This Wednesday and (in galut) Thursday are Shavu'ot. May we soon celebrate an authentic Shavu'ot with the holiday's special mitzva, bringing bikkurim in heavy baskets on broad Jewish shoulders to the rebuilt Beit Hamikdash.

Eliyahu Ha-navi

In last week's Haftara we read of the mission of Eliyahu Ha-navi "before the arrival of the great and awesome day of Hashem." I read the same Haftara for myself when I review the Sidra on the Shabbat before Yom Ha'atzma'ut. His mission is to heal a generation gap which seems to only be getting worse.
V'heshiv lev avot al banim v'lev banim al avotam. The older generation will be reconciled to their children's building the geula seemingly divorced from Torah, while the young will be reconciled to the ancient traditions of our people. Otherwise G-d forbid the next pasuk will materialize. But we shall overcome.