Line, Crescent, Cross and Swastika

I don’t remember in which book of Hoimar Von Ditfurth I saw first time the picture of virus under microscope. I was either 10 or 15. Instantly I knew – that think did not assemble itself, the complexity of what I saw required Assembler. There is no other way about it.

It still took some time and study to establish my personal relationship with Assembler. It took years until I found the path designated to approach Him and ultimately to accomplish complete Unity in Him.

But then, first time in my life I saw a pattern, something undeniably to complex to exist without supervision. A mark for those with open eyes and honesty, to challenge own ego in admission of this Higher Power.

Once the personal relationship was established, I was no in need to see those marks as I experienced them in my personal life. Yet, time and time again He gave me enjoyment of finding such revelations.

In addition to that, once I began to learn the commentaries and Sefurim written by Rav Shimshon Refuel Hirsch I quickly developed a great love to every mark of his pen.

He exposed me to the essential idea that the Creator of the universe reveals himself in three methods. Besides the Torah and nature, He reveals Himself in human History as well. Any keen, intelligent, and sensitive mind can see His guiding actions in the development of mankind.

The earliest days and years of our history are known to us only through the revelation of Torah and our oral tradition recorded in the Medrish. As such, historic component of the Midrashic literature should be treated as a part of the revelation given to the Jewish people and not as the third component of general revelation accessible to rest of the humanity. It must be stated though, that parts of the Sinai revelation were addressed to all children of Noah, all humans. Scientific research on nature and history is accessible to all humanity, if they seek the Truth.

In certain parts of humanity’s development, the Creator of Man can be easily, so to say, detected by anyone possessing any Knowledge of history, culture, and religion. There are certain patterns which only stubborn individuals can deny as something random and “natural”.

My aim in composing this essay is to discuss these phenomena. 

G-d and Nimrod

                                                                                     B-H

Abraham, a man of flesh and blood is bargaining with the Creator of the Univerese in an attempt to save the cities Sdom, Amora, Adma and Seboim from destruction. Sodom and Gomora are the two that are most known from this account.

We Jews, know this conversation very well.

Those who attend any kind of services on Sundays or Saturdays, know this story as well. At this moment, we can talk about it without the risk of overexaggerating, that most of our fellow Americans know this story.

I would even take a risk and say that some self-declared atheists may know this story as well.

In the world, in philosophical literature (but not limited to) some of the events that are described in the Bible are considered to be fundamental in human history for developing ideas of justice. This particular conversation may be familiar to most of humanity.

We do not judge, or even worse, harm the majority on the account of deeds or beliefs of the minority. This is the moral teaching coming from this dialog.

But there is a part of this story that is not known to public.  I will describe a quiet different chat, which I imagine, took place before G-d came to our father Abraham.

Nimrod the First known also as Amraphel, was the emperor of Babylon, the first city and government organized in a way that later in history was described as Hegemony.

Nimrod the First was killed by Abraham in the battle of the four kings by supernatural means described in detail in the Midrash.

After the death of his father, Nimrod the Second approached G-d with a complaint against his enemies from the Valley of Shittim. Which is where Abraham came to rescue and save his nephew Lot, and in process killied the first Nimrod - Amraphel.

Nimrod the second called:                           

-          G-d?

-          Yes, my servant Nimrod.

-          Oh, you call me a servant now but you allowed my father to be eliminated by this enemy of social order Abraham?

-         Don’t you know? Lev Hamelech be yadaim Hashem. Your heart is in my hands so of course you are my servant like all the other Nimrods in the future – Cesar, Napoleon, Hitler. Those are the big ones but there are pages of the future filled with names of all small Nimrods. Anyhow we will not talk about what is to become of history now and why I allow them to act in the way they do. What is you Issue Nimrod?

-         G-d, did you hear about the evil perpetrated in the cities of the Valley of Shittim? The lack of hospitality, their laws against any immigration that would undermine the wellbeing of the citizens, and then cardinal sins against the first commandment in your Torah, that about marriage? I think they deserve to be eliminated from the rest of the healthy society for they may endanger the rest of us with their misdeeds, it is potentially danger her in Bavel and for my relatives in Canaan.

-         Yes, something came to me, but I can’t eliminate such a large population on the account of some bad individuals…How many bad people do you think live there in the five cities of Shittim Valley?

-         I don’t know but let me ask you G-d, if there would be 10 evildoers then would you consider eliminating them?

-         Nooo …can’t destroy human lives on account of 10 bad individuals. You talking about my creation and well… if I created them that means I love them and it would cause me tremendous suffering if I would have to harm them in any way.

-         What about 20 bad guys, would it be enough for You to act?

-         Of course not, I can’t do it.

-         What if 30 are evil?

-        Where is this going Nimrod? What are you trying to achieve? Of course, my Justice Love would not allow Me to harm the population on the account of 30.

-         What about 40, would you send angels of destruction then?

-         No.

-         45 G-d, 45 bad guys and You say it would not justify the elimination of those cities’ populations?

-         No, Nimrod! I said No!

-         Let me tell you G-d. I’m quite sure that there is at last 50 bad individuals in those cities, that makes 10 bad guys per city. I appeal to your Justice to destroy the lives of the inhabitants of those cities.

-         It will not happen Nimrod, the only condition is that all the members of those societies must be evil to be eliminated, otherwise My Attribute of Chesed will not allow to harm those people.

-         But G-d they are pagans, they don’t believe in You, is this not enough to destroy them and erase them from under the heaven?

-         Nimrod! Enough! They are mistaking perhaps with their intellect, while you and your father rebelled against me in action, and I still allowed you to exist. I myself will go and learn what are you crying about and then I will ask my friend Abraham what he thinks about whole thing. Then I will make my decisions.

I wonder, did I make this story up from scratch or some people already heard it before and are siding with Nimrod?

By Matys Weiser

Rebetzin

                                                                                              B-H

So, it happened. 
At the age of 97 Cheshanover alte rebetzin passed away.

I knew this day would come.  Thinking so many times, how will I get to New York for the levaya, as I am so often on the west coast. I Couldn’t imagine not to be there at the funeral which according to the Jewish law, must happen within a day of passing.

For me, a person that is away a big part of year, half of a day of driving from the closest airport with direct flights to NY, it may be a matter of concern – how will I do it. And there are those places where I go, which are almost day from the airport.

HBH decided to take her away when I’m just two hours away from the place of the levaya and I cannot attend it due to the Corona pandemic restrictions.

Now, at the hour of the levaya, I sat to write this. I could not attend the funeral of my own mother who passed away in Poland four years ago, now I can’t listen to the words of hespaidim about a person who was like a mother to my family in the crucial years after our immigration to United States.

Thinking, making Cheshbon haneifesh – soul account. I don’t know. I don’t know.

That’s how she was – a mother not only to her family but mother to yesoymim who she found on the path of her life. I know that our family was not only the case.

She was born in Sadovne, Mazowsze (Mazovia) district of Poland just few years after Poland regained its independence after 130 years under the control of foreign kingdoms. Mazowsze was under Russian control and Polish and Jewish populations developed their own culture, distinctive to other parts of the Polish land.

There is a reason why we have Poilishe and Galitziane Hassidim, as well as Russishe and Hungarians.

Cuisine is only one of many aspects of cultural differences.

Rebetzin was at the entry to her life, just 16, when the darkest years of human history approached.

Somehow her mother with, I hope I know it correctly, four children, managed to escape to the Russian side of occupied Poland. As most Polish citizens they were considered by Sovyetska vlast (Soviets) - enemies of the people – burjuy. As such they were send to Siberia and trough seven years there, they were dumped from one labor camp to another. Rebetzin’s mother didn’t survive, giving her life in Janbul – Kazakhstan.

After the war, four siblings came back to Poland – three sisters and one brother.

The three sisters became three rebetzins – Sadovne, Cheshanove and Aleksander – Boro Park.

Only one of three got married to a Galitziane family, not a common mix before the WWII.

How did she fit in to the Rubin-Helbershtam family? I can humbly attest from my few years close to the family – she was one of them – perhaps most important, most influential in the decades after the passing of her husband and the father of my rebe.

Now I have to say few words about Cheshanov itself, and I will try to be restrained in my words for two reasons – you never know what can be offensive to others; and I know, I can be if not controversial personality at least inconvenient for some so I will try my best.

Cheshanov comes from the straight line of descendants of Santzer dynasty. And it can be heard and felt there in many aspects. But probably even more that Santz – Nowy Sacz, it is the spirit of Shinov – Sieniawa, which is dominant in Hasidic life philosophy of Cheshanov, than any other influence.

It is not only because every third man or boy in the Shul is Yechezkiel Shraga for this name is used in the family for generations after the original Yechezkiel Shraga of Shinov.

He was a son of Santzer Rebe, probably the most influential among his other siblings, even he did not continue in the place of his father in Santz.

He took a post of the Rav and at this time in Galitzia it was also the post of the Rebe, in Shinov in 1855.

When the “whole town” came to listen to his Third Meal derusha – Torah Comentry at the end of Shabes, which in Hasidic custom is the moment when position of Rav takes effect; the new Shinover Rav opened the Chumash and red from the Parsha – Torah portion of the week.

In his later years in Shinov, he began to deliver customary sedua shides derusha but the way how he approached some Minhagim was symptomatic to his general approach to Hasidus.

This Derech – path, was expressed probably the best way by the Satmar Ruv Reb Yoel Taitelbaum – Derch Baal Shem Tov is lost, and we don’t understand it. This is what I heard from his Talmidim – students.

It was controversial a few decades ago, and even if at the time of the Shinover Ruv it was only a little taste of this approach, it should be self-understood, that it was not popular among other Hasidim.

It is not the place perhaps, but it must be mentioned that in the following centuries after the Ball Shem Tov, different Hasidic groups developed distinctive cultures, life philosophies and minchagim which are not necessarily rooted in the teachings of the first master of Hasidus. Some of them seemingly expressing philosophy in direct opposition to the original Hassidic teachings.

Cheshanov respects minhagim, recognize the power of the Hasidic movement, teach great thoughts of Hasidic masters from different streams of this philosophy, but – all of this with feet strongly standing on the ground, with a square head and skepticism famous among other Hassidim.

Cheshanover Rebetzin was a small postured person, especially among her sons and grandsons of six feet and more, but she was great in precisely this kind of approach to life and yidishkeit so characteristic for this place.

She was a champion of self-sufficiency; man has to work to support his family.

She was a hard-working woman, cooking the best kugels already from the beginning of the week, some of this food she delivered to lonely persons just hours before Shabes.

I have to mention the parve cholent. It was best parve cholent in the Universe, parve because in 1950ties, some Singers and other vegetarians use to come from Manhattan to visit family in Boro Park. Yes, those Singers – Yitschak Bashevis and Yisrael Yehoshua.

Rebetzin’s Shabes fish – you can smell the town of Belz in that fish – she told me that she learned the recipe from her mother in law, daughter of the Belzer rebbe.

But the most important mida - trait which I observed in the years as a neighbor, was yashrus -straightforwardness.

She used to say – “Good thing you should learn from the pastuch – a simpleton, the bad thing you should not learn from the rebe.”

She didn’t hesitate to call some of the rabbis – ‘’galuch”.

Well…not the most pleasing name or description of some leaders in our own fold. Mildly translated, galuch is the person making a living from spiritual services. But to really understand the word you should ask Yiddish speaking children.

I have a great privilege to befriend some of her grandchildren and of course consider her son as my personal Rav.

I understand how atypical person I am in the Hasidic world in general and in Cheshanov in particular.

But I don’t have to hide or play someone else, there is no inconvenient mold which I have to push in to.

Thanks to that yashrus which she implemented in to the following generations I feel at home.

She was the one who asked me almost quarter of century ago to come and open the door.

Rebetzin with her clear head and straight understanding of life and human characters was Cheshanover as rest of Cheshanov – she was just Cheshanov

Freedom of individual

I can’t believe that it’s been already year since I posted last time.

I wrote few essays since then and this is one of them. I titled it “Freedom of individual” as B-H I hope to write separate essay on topic of Personal Freedom – the Freedom achievable only by progressing control over our body and heart, guided by commandments of Torah.
Below some words about Freedom of Individual or citizen if you will.

A street of a European city, could be day, could be after dusk. Four or five story buildings, some trees on the edge of the sidewalk. Streets paved with cobblestones, sometimes smooth on the surface sometimes corrugated as they came straight from the riverbed.

And then the steps. First quiet but then louder and louder as the somebody walking on the sidewalk progresses quietly closer toward a rhythmic sound. He can’t turn back, he knows, this would put him in danger. Now we see the boots and then persons marching with weapons on their shoulders.

Then loud command – Ausweis bytte, Papiren.

Man and woman are showing ID’s, but it doesn’t end there.

One of the soldiers or policemen are sniffing trough the belongings of the person who a minute ago was walking minding his or her own business but now he/she is a suspect. For a petty crime, it can end with a jail sentence or even worse.

This is a common scene from many movies that I remember watching as a child depicting the Nazi occupation of Poland. This is how it was described to us, born a few decades after the war.

Millions of people were still around who remembered those years of the German fascist invasion.

When in December 1981 the Polish communist government instituted a State of War up on Polish the population, these scenes came to our lives as a generational Deja Vue.

There was no doubt in our mind that we had a Nazi like regime reincarnated and now dressed in the Polish uniforms, asking for our ID in our native language, just as original Nazis sniffing through our belongings.

After major riots in the cities, patrols were walking in groups no less the five, two police and three soldiers, in fear of their own population.

I will never forget the scene which I observed from the city bus on the way back from school.

The bus stopped to pick up some passengers, and in the tall grass separating the road from the sidewalk, a few boys, aged less than ten, were shooting from their sticks toward such patrol.

The whole bus, the whole street burst with laughter. But in less than minute it was in the air, people felt sorry for the young officers protecting the regime from the hate of the population. Kind of a hate – pity situation.

Seventeen days after the Nazis entered Poland from the west, the Red Army took the entire eastern Poland as it was agreed between Hitler’s and Stalin’s diplomats.

Lvov was a capital of eastern Galitzia and now become a Soviet city.

Under communist rule every citizen is supposes to work, not necessarily in the profession acquired or practiced in the past. Rabbis definitely didn’t have it easy under an atheist government, so they got a profession which was fitting them somehow or if they got some ‘protektzia’ then some easier job.

Rabbi Shlomo Helbershtam, son of Bobover rebbe and after the WWII Bobover rebbe himself, got that kind of easy profession – a factory guard. His job was to check workers ID as they were entering the factory as it is a practice in many large businesses until today.

Soon, the local population learned the soviet ways of life, stealing became a widespread practice, including stealing from the factories and places of work.

Reb Shloime was asked by his supervisors to check the belongings of some workers leaving the premises of the factory after work hours. The Bobover rebbe refused as he saw such behavior humiliating and inhumane.

He didn’t learn this idea from Voltaire or Kant, it was not a “humanism” where he was rooted in his ethics.

It was the Toira which he learned from his father and grandfather and all the way to the Moishe and Avruchom.

Freedom and personal dignity is a fundamental Jewish value, indispensable and equal for all G-ds creations. It is a first condition to even think about service of the Creator as a Jew and as a Goy.

We will not dwell in this place about chalachic ramifications of basic minimums given in historic environment. We are talking about the idea given first at the time of creation, and then again as an introduction to Atzeres Hadibres – The Ten Commandments.

The idea of personal freedom and human dignity was obvious for the Bobever rebbe, for some – this backward Jew from a small town in an even more backward Galitzia, Poland.

Not long ago, I was sitting by a table with bunch of my fellow Americans talking all the things Americans talk about. I still don’t know much about Baseball or Football, but I was always hoping that on the other hand, sharing ideas of American political and social system written in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution will do.

Then topics switched to security, and as I was quiet before for lack of knowledge about sports, now I was just stunned listening where we hold as a society.

For my fellow Americans it was fine when the police stop and frisk… as long as this is not one looking like one of us. It was ok to look in your pockets when you enter an office building, because who knows.

It was ok to take the belt off of your pants in the middle of airport, because…I don’t even know!

I was horrified that no one is even hinting how to build a society where no one is in need of ‘protection’.

No one analyzed why do we need this ‘protection’, everybody just knew from whom do we need it – from enemies of our freedom.

You don’t have a freedom when security government can listen to your conversations and look in to your correspondence.

Communists in Poland under the Martial law were at least informing us that your conversations are under surveillance. Here, the person who informed us about surveillance became a political refugee!

You don’t have freedom if the cops can look in your pockets!

You don’t have freedom if TSA can put you in situation where you don’t know what to hold, your falling pants or your suitcase that is soon to be checked.

You don’t have freedom if you deny the same privilege to people living in your or other countries.

And no! They don’t hate us for our freedom, they hate us because we normalize taking their freedom away.

I will even go further.

There is no freedom if we can’t protect the wellbeing of our citizens, and by wellbeing, I mean their health and sometimes lives.

We don’t have a freedom if we can’t educate our children to prepare them to be contributing members of society, there is no freedom if we cannot do it using our school taxes in the way we wish.

And no, no parent will send a kid to the school teaching anything against the wellbeing of the general society, be it a religious or secular school.

There is no freedom of an individual or a society, if work of the government is not reflecting wishes of “we the people”. Instead every politician on every level of government is only looking how to appease the donor class which by Darwinian nature, protects only their own interest.

No freedom there.

Instead I was sitting there with my fellow Americans listening to ideas of betterment of methods of security.

Only… what is there to protect and secure?

Yomim Toivim

“This month will be the beginning of the months for you”

PESACH

In the middle of the first month it was declared to us that we are independent people.

Released from bondage by other human beings we are now in the position to take the route of our own choice, to shape our own future.

SFIRAH and SHVIOS

The hints where to go were given, but to get the tool to complete freedom, it takes some work; some preparation. We got 50 days to climb the steps to be worthy of the treasure, we got the guidebook to freedom. Now we have freedom not from other human beings, but freedom from ourselves, our own earthly character.

Freedom engraved-written on the Tablets containing as the sages explain, all of the Toira.

Engraving and freedom spells the same way in Hebrew.

We said “Naaseh ve nishma” – “We will do, and we will listen”.

THREE WEEKS

This declaration and readiness from our side was unprecedented and still is unprecedented but the gloomy days and weeks of summer came, and we lost it, we messed up.

ROSH CHASHANA

The Awakening came later in the summer. We made a cheshboin haneifesh - the introspection and its culmination came after a month of preparation at the beginning of the civil year, on Rosh Choidesh Tishrei, when we accept once more the Sovereignty of the King.

YOM KIPPUR

We made a proper attempt to see ourselves in our full misery and after ten days in anguish we came to ask for forgiveness.

It was granted to us.

SUCCOS

Now we were ready to renew our bond to the Giver of life, so we showed our complete trust going out and living without physical protection for seven days.

By dwelling in flimsy structures without a real roof we declared to our Father in heaven and to humanity our confidence and conviction that He is the one who protect us from any harm, and we can’t be harmed unless He withdraw His protection. But we knew that it is ultimately in our own hands. Our deeds have a power to alternate this protection, i.e. we may, in our madness ruin the pledge of His shield.

SIMCHAS TOIRAH

At this moment of the calendar however, we are too high to fail and after the affliction and cure of Av, Elul and Tishrei we come back to the Source, and once more in the year we take the gift of Torah to dance with in excitement, to learn the steps of the ultimate dance of existence

CHANNUKACH

But first we must understand that it is not an easy task, that besides our own physical corruptive powers there are also outside influences. We must see it in clarity that to fulfill our individual and national task we must carefully separate ourselves from foreign persuasions.

We don’t withdraw from the general society to achieve this, quite the opposite, we declare to the public our confidence in our own values and the power of light invested in us. We declare the readiness to serve the rest of humanity sharing the guidelines to achieve a bond with the Creator, a bond that is uncorrupted by human imagination.

PURIM

If we achieve this level of understanding…another holiday is given to us, almost at the end of the year, a holiday closing the cycle and concluding the path we stepped on still as slaves.

This one is a true gift, it reveals all what was hidden till now. And the name of the Book that we are reading on this day is precisely such “Megilas Esther” - “Revelation of the Hidden”.

Of course, to get to the heights of this last Yom Tiv we must properly follow and prepare ourselves through all the days preceding Purim. Otherwise we will experience a superficial day of rigid commandments with a slight taste of fun.

What we will miss is the understanding of what the mask is really hiding, what is the true character of reality.

Mathematics, chemistry, biology and music are declaring unfathomable harmony in every aspect of the creation, a harmony impossible without the hidden hand of the Creator.

Theoretical physics are telling us that all three-dimensional surroundings exist against the very same laws that keep this world in existence; that what we see, and experience is nothing but a mask showing or declaring existence but behind the mask there is Truth. Hints of it is given to us in the form of this mask.

If you are not ready for them, you don’t have to go to Sifrey Kabula to understand, that this world is just a virtual reality serving one and only purpose – to find the way back to Eden.

From Alturas to San Francisco, or from San Francisco to Alturas?

                                                                                               B-H

In my previous essay I suggested to look for this writing as it is also inspired by the city of San Francisco.

I wrote this essay four years ago but for some unknown reason, I never had it published.

So …here it is:

California is not the state where I usually work. Nevertheless, I was quite happy to find myself in that state at a time when my fellow New Yorkers were experiencing a few weeks of snow blizzards, followed by ice storms.

Alturas is a town that has quite a distance from any other town and requires at least a two hours’ drive to or from its nearest neighbor. Due to the higher altitude, it can be quite cold over there. In Spanish, Alturas means ‘higher place.’

Interestingly, the main route, Route 59, in my home town of Monsey shares the name with this Californian, predominantly Bask and Native American settlement. But Route 59 in NY is quite flat and its altitude is not too high, geographically speaking. I guess something else puts Monsey on a higher plane.

The day after I left Alturas the town was shut down due to a tribal dispute that took the lives of four individuals.

A few days later I was at a business meeting in a store in downtown San Francisco.

While my customer perused my merchandise, I observed the street through the front glass window. Maybe 25 feet in front of my line of vision, there was a fellow seated on the sidewalk. With worn clothing and tired eyes, this unusually skinny Caucasian man in his mid twenties was sitting there without any support to his back. Somebody brought him some cookies to eat, but what he was doing there was simply watching. Watching a busy street of a big city. People were rushing in all directions, cars were passing by, trolleys were ringing their bells while making squeaky noises on the tracks that were barely visible upon the pavement of the street.

He was seated there and just watching.

That could have been me a little bit over thirty years ago. In a politically different reality but a visually similar tableau, people were walking, running, and chasing something that they will never manage to catch in their lifetimes.

In the brief hippie period of my life, I used to sit on the sidewalk or in the mall or at a train station and just watch. I studied people’s walks and tried to understand where all of them were going and where I myself should go.

Now, on that street in San Francisco, a few groups of hippies passed whose appearances were vastly familiar to me. They looked like relics of the sixties, with long hair, loose garish clothing, and badly in need of a shower. I was sadly reminded of my own hippie phase. For a while, I saw being a flower child as an alternative to the conformist society in which the individual didn’t really count and in which rules were forms of restriction.

There I sat in the San Francisco business district, a part of the soulless business world. Am I soulless? I would be, if not for those memories and whole new set of convictions.

Then I noticed someone on the street going from business to business, even stopping passersby on the sidewalk. In a plastic cup he had something that looked like a piece of worthless polished brass, but apparently, he thought he had some precious metal to sell. In his daydream, perhaps this man already counted the money he earned from his sale and imagined all it would buy him. But in reality, everyone else saw something very different in this object of his affection. While he saw treasure in his cup, they saw only a cupful of despair.

I looked at the man, but he couldn’t return my glance, for his eyes kept shifting in all directions. They could not stop and focus on anything for longer than a second. He was on drug hunger; his young but plowed-with-pain face showed everything. There was no human anymore inside of that human-looking shell, but just an animal chasing after something which would fill the emptiness that caused him to look for artificial happiness in the first place. But now, the very result of the chemical consciousness enhancements was this vacuum - a vacuum of humanness, a vacuum of self-consciousness, a vacuum of anything but the animalistic hunger. He was not chasing after a moment of happiness anymore; now he was only chasing after a moment of forgetfulness, in his desire to kill the pain.

I remember from the shiurim of Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt'l, when he often spoke about our Tzelem Elokim. He said that most people still maintain their Tzelem Elokim – their likeness to G-d - which gives them the potential to climb toward a higher spiritual experience and ultimately to higher spiritual existence. But it was clear from his statement that there are also some two-legged, vertical standing creatures that have lost it.

I didn’t understand it then, I didn’t ask, even though I could have submitted my question anonymously on a piece of paper, as it was customary to give to Rabbi Miller after his shiur. To this day, I still don’t know exactly what he meant.

Is it possible for a human being to lose it all? To lose his soul?

Rashi says clearly that what makes us different from other Nefesh Chai is our intellect and speech. But intellect and speech are only two of the tools to the greatest gift of our Creator – free choice. It is free choice which empowers our Tzelem Elokim. Intellect, along with our means of communication, is just the necessary apparatus without which choice would be impossible.

Are there any Bnai Adam – children of man - who lost the ability for free choice?

I would imagine that a person like the one I described a few lines above is such an individual; but can I say it with certainty?

No. I can’t.

Neither I, nor any other human being has the tools to evaluate the balance between chemical intoxication and the intoxication of our DNA, hormones, and other natural factors which our decisions are influenced by.

We don’t have the tools to measure someone else’s level of intellect to ascertain if it is high functioning enough to overpower the desires of the heart and make them submissive to the intellect, as Sefer HaTanya describes it. This battle between Saichel and Lev is our work of life.

Can we give this evaluation to ourselves? I think this is the first and most basic condition for any spiritual progress in our lives. We must find who we are, and where we are in our lives; which direction we should follow and which utensils we should use. But the most important necessity is our acknowledgment of the One above and our imploration to Him for guidance and help.

In Parshas Netzuvim we learn: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life… - Ivuchartu bachaim.” Many before have directed our attention to the fact that it doesn’t say – choose between life and death, but simply ‘choose life.’

It seems to me, that when we are choosing, when we are using our faculty of Bechira – free choice, the benefit can only be life. But when we follow our desires, when we succumb to our hearts, our bodily requests, we are not choosing at all! We just follow what our body tells us to do, engaging intellect only in the process of justification to see ourselves in a better light than just as thoughtless beasts!

Who are we in times like this? Are we the Tzelem Elokim when we put His gift of Bechira aside? Is our intellect serving the purpose of analyzing reality and following the will of our Creator, the purpose for which life was given to us in the first place? Is our speech used to express where intellectual process leads us, and do we use it to inspire and encourage our fellowmen to do the same – to make choices?

Self-evaluation is a fundamental condition to any effort in our life, any meaningful work.

And this is the only way to get to ‘higher places.’

Beirut

                                                                                                 B-H

A Few years ago, at one of our Bnai Abraham meetings, a newly returned Baal Tshuva attended. His name was Shimon.

Oh! I didn’t explain what Bnai Avraham is? Well, it is nothing, it was an attempt to create an environment where primarily gerim and also Baaley Tshuva can come and share experiences; like for example the integration with their FFB’s communities and all kind of other struggles.

Anyhow…

Shimon was ex member of the Israeli commando. He was sent by his government to kill some terrorists in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon.

With great pride, he told us the details of his actions including the fact that after the mission came to an end, he came to the conclusion that since he was one of the two out of twenty commandos who survived, that it was a suicide mission. It caused him to think about life … about the gift of life, about the Giver himself.

For almost an hour in some quiet home in Boro Park, the room was filled with smoke, the loud noise of machine guns, the smell of sweat and human blood. His English was good enough to describe his experience with details describing the death of his enemies and friends. But also, his miraculous survival.

It was painful to hear that he still took some amount of pride from the fact that he killed human beings, people who he didn’t know. Somebody’s husbands, fathers, uncles, brothers.

I was afraid to ask if there were any wives, mothers, sisters, aunts…children.

The action took place in an apartment building and everybody in the way got eliminated. Or as they call killing in the nice way.

I met Arieh not long ago. Arieh was someone whose experience was similar to that of Shimons. In his early fifties he lives in California for around thirty years. Although he was covered with thick layers of tattoos on his skin, I saw a precious Jewish soul yearning to connect with what was taken from him in his youth – the connection with his G-d.

Being on the sharp curve of his life he told me:

“I can’t take it off of my body but, I am telling you, when I get my stuff in order, I will go to the mikva. I will let my beard grow, and also my payos. I will not hide my connection to Hashem. I want everybody to see the kedusha. I will keep Shabes and eat only kosher and put tefilin every day. May Hashem help me…”

I wish him the koach - strength and providence to straighten his life up and fulfill his desire that he expressed while choking on tears. Seeing him like this was enough for me to appreciate the Yidishe Neshuma at work once more.

We shared some difficult life experiences and I asked him in a delicate way, how he got to where he is.

He was also a member of the commandos with a mission in Beirut.

They sent us to die – he told me – we were doing crazy things there…

“After that, I told myself I will not defend this f… country I will not let my children do it either. It was crazy…” hes said.

Exactly a week after my encounter with Arieh, I met the senior rabbi who visited President Reagan in his oval office a few days after blowing up an American military base in Beirut by Hezbollah militants.  Some two hundred young people who were told that they are going to defend their country had died there.

The rabbi, when mentioning Hezbollah used some words that we usually add when talking about our enemies, like those who caused many Jewish deaths, physical or spiritual forms of death.

I raised my head in wonder but kept my tongue behind my teeth, out of respect and due to the presence of other people I didn’t ask – Who sent those kids to Beirut? Isn’t it the capital of the other country? If our American fighters would defend Spokane for example, from North Korean invaders, would we call them terrorists? Why did we get involved? Is a war our Jewish business? Don’t we comprehend that this is the two sides of the same coin, with the picture of the straight sword on one side and a curved sword on the other? Eisav’s and Yishmael’s swords?

Shimon’s and Arieh’s government told them to go and kill. Kill the enemies before they kill you.

But they didn’t know those people!

The Jewish principal of self defense applies only when there is situation of life endangerment, but it can not be used as a practical application of Von Clausevitz doctrine!

The Talmud teaches clearly. When you hear the noise and find someone digging under you house you are allowed killing him in self-defense since you can suspect his worst intentions.

When you see someone digging – taking action, there is no time for negotiation, it is to late, your life is only what you have, and you should defend it even if the cost is the life of another human being. At that moment his life has no value since he intends to spill human blood. However, intentions alone can never serve as a justification to kill!

Before Yaacov met his brother Eisav, The Torah says that he was afraid, and he was in distress.

Rashi explains – He was afraid for his life and his family, but he was in distress that perhaps he will have to take a human life.

 What are we doing there… in Beirut… and other places…?

5th of July part 2

                                                                                             B-H
This essay will be a continuation of my series of essays under the common title of 5^th of July.

In this new essay I will stay in the same political mood, this essay will be a really sad one, for such is the political and social situation of our country in general and our religious group in subject of politics in particular.

I hope to write for the people who don’t despise democracy because it sounds as the name of the Democratic Party, or politically opposite group being fooled by the same name believing that the Democratic party represents democratic values.

Both of those assumptions are wrong.

Siding with the Republican party doesn’t make you anti democracy, because a republic or democracy, or rather representative democracy are essentially the same political system.

I’m sorry to explain those basic facts and please don’t feel like someone stupid, but unfortunately there are people among us, who are completely ignorant on those topics and as such they are extremely vulnerable to manipulation.

As I said in my previous essay, it pains me that it is happening to the nation who lived through all possible political systems through history and by this fact alone, we Jews should understand better.

And yet, even among us there are masses of people who are lacking basic education on the reality which may affect their lives like no other factors but they are completely ignorant and ignoramus in politics.

And yet…as every Jew, they have an opinion or… few of them.

This is not postulate to include political science in to our Chedurim and Yeshivos for Gemara and Meforshim give enough education on these topics, rather it is postulate to the Jewish media to stop selling B./ taken straight from outside manipulative propaganda machine and deliver it to unsuspecting Jewish mases, as well as many times, to my horror, shaping political views of our leaders.

I understand that for the good of our community we may support right or left wing of the ruling corporate party. But please stop pretending that this is what a democracy is about, or a republic looks like.

I will try to give a few examples showing that no conscience Jew can fully associate him/her selves with any of the two wings of the current government i.e. Democratic or Republican party.

Let’s start with the very emotional topic of abortion.

As many of us, I also wonder how the subject of killing babies could be a matter of political discourse in any country and without doubt I support saving those lives by means of appropriate legislature.

But at the same time, I consider lives of Iraqi, Afghan or Libyan babies equally sacred, created by the same Giver of life as American babies. Those foreign babies have mothers, fathers, uncles, brothers, sisters, aunts, grandparents and all others from the same street and neighborhood, who are killed with the support of the politicians playing on your sentiments but pretending to be life protectors.

A Party that advertise itself as pro-life, supports wars serving their patrons mostly economic and only sometimes political gains.

I will not support such a party.

I will not support a party that made many of my fellow Jews believe that the second amendment to American Constitution is Toira de Oraisa.

People kill, that’s’ right. But they kill more effectively with weapons or even better with semiautomatic weapon.

How any G-d fearing person, not to say Jew, could support such a law as a second amendment in its present understanding? Not going in to the details, that the second amendment does not say about the possession of the any kind of weapon or possession of weapon itself. Read it, then we can discuss the topic.

How any Christian person who read the Gospel at least once in his/her life could be supportive of any walls on any borders? How lehavdil a Jew who learns from Pirkey Uvois (Avot) that midda of “what is mine is mine what is yours is yours” is Midda of Sedom can talk about so called security of borders?

How anyone with brain in the scull can be a racist???

I know. They scare you with terrorists, gangs, rapist and such.

They always do it. Then they could pull you on a string like a puppy looking for the protection of his owner. You are not the owner in this case.

Don’t get under the impression that this is some leftist/liberal propaganda what I write. I’m neither on the so called Right or so called Left on the illusion of a political spectrum.

As I said before and probably will say it again – don’t get fooled by the wrestling match which they performing to give you an impression that you have a choice. If they really would like to give you a choice they would allow all political candidates to talk to the public and not only a few selected by them to appear in the corporate media.

For example – A 5% limit doesn’t allow presidential candidates with less than 5% support to debate in presidential debates. What is 5% is designated by private media companies owned by the same people who deliver those debates to you and ultimately deliver to you candidates to choose from.

If you don’t understand – this is not a democracy nor a republic.

I don’t support the Democratic Party for they are just a fig leaf on the erva of the political system which is pretending it represents the same values and mechanisms as the founding fathers of this country designed.

They are talking about protecting the working class of this nation which are the real builders of prosperity of this country and yet ‘democrats’ the same as ‘republicans’ support any legislature that helps to suck more blood from the veins of the population. Their talk about middle class or working class is nothing but anesthesia which like all parasites infuse in your body that you don’t feel the sting which you blood is being sucked through.

In the last presidential election, “Democrats” tried to install in the White House someone whose essence was about selling herself to the highest bidder, but to win votes of the masses she was talking sleazy talk about the suppressed and how she is the only one to help fight income inequality and other problems affecting our economy and our nation.

She was talking about peace and yet send weapons to rebel groups in Syria and helping Saudis siege of Yemen. She bombed Libya just to show her strong hand in bid for presidential position.

Because of lies on such a level now we have to deal with an impulsive, illiterate, immoral tenant of the White house who accidently won the election against the desires of the true owners of this country. So far, he has just enough brains to do his best to appease them to keep to his toy position.

I met many people, especially in the West, people who are all about “family values”, they told me – yes, I voted for him… but with fingers on my nose.

I can understand this kind of attitude. I understand anger with the political establishment which anyhow is only a façade for the real rulers of this nation, class of owners who need a political apparatus to keep the masses calm.

What I don’t understand, is the almost unconditional and many times enthusiastic support for this lowlife in the White House, narcissist with mentality of a badly spoiled 5 years old and not much more intellect.

There is no Mikva which can be used to meatachor tuma of supporting current president in such enthusiastic manner or even supporting him at all.

You still have another choice – stop giving them legitimacy pretending that we have free elections. We don’t. We have socially engineered elections. This last presidential elections, social engineering worked only partially and a person who was not the prime choice of the ruling class got elected. Most probably this was also the case in the previous presidential elections, but the last president also learned quickly how to serve his masters.

For example – Democrats did have the absolute majority to provide this nation with the healthcare system assuring that no American will go bankrupt or die because of lack of money. They didn’t. The so-called Obamacare was another gift to insurance corporations and the pharmaceutical industry.

Bush left the country with two wars, Obama with his secretary of State added another five.

Bush legalized torture, Obama decided to use extrajudicial executions including killing American citizens without due process.

Bush did not allow off shore drilling, Obama did.

Bush designed a so-called Road Map for peace in the Middle East, Obama gave Israeli government 10 billion $ for weapons and under his watch almost half million settlers moved in to what was supposed to be the Palestinian State.

I know that the way how I put the last issue may anger some of my readers but I’m not a supporter of the so called Two State Solution and this is not a topic of this essay anyhow.

The fact is that by all means, the Democratic party proved their faithful service to their sponsors and never represented those who voted for them.

What is the solution for the quagmire which we find ourselves in it?

I don’t know at the moment.

But please let me tell you from my own experience. As a 10 years old boy I was growing up in a communist country where the ruling party wanted people to believe that they acting as protectors of the working class; at the same time communists were sending the police forces to pacificate striking factories and beating people demanding basic human rights.

Communist propaganda wanted me to accept an artificial reality in mine and other communist countries. When I learned the truth about power abuse in 1976, this was first year of my personal emancipation which ultimately lead me to find freedom in Toira and Mitzvois. The way was long, but my dream about all people being free and being free to serve their Creator is still in my mind and on my heart.

First step on the path to freedom is awareness that you are slave, you are owned primarily by you own desires but again… this is not the topic of this essay. You are owned by the other creatures pretending to be human beings but essentially being human-form expressions of the power of the Other Side.

In deep sense, they are the Other Side.

I know…it needs explanation. But I touched some deeper level of awareness I don’t feel strong enough to write the depths of this topic.

Let’s stay here, where I ask to first be aware that you are manipulated, owned and soothed in this matrix of Oilom Hasheker on so many levels. Please awake your awareness at least on the level of politics and personal freedom as native of the country which as the first of all countries, offered idea of freedom to all of its citizens as an ideal.

It is hard to imagine that the ruling class will allow the vote that will undermine their own interest.

People giving face (politicians, media and more) to the ruling class are being paid and the powers paying them will do everything including bloodshed to protect their superior interests. They don’t respect any human being, foreign or domestic. They will fool and send your sons and daughters to die, and kill if they can show off with larger numbers on their accounts in their country club or on the golf course.

They will tax you, lying to your eyes that it is good for you and you will believe them. You think you are smarter that this? They are doing it already for a long time. I know …it sucks to admit that you got fooled…it sucks more to be fooled even further.

What is called today “American Government” will not change the laws allowing to pay for elections or to reward politicians and other officials by different forms of bribery like trips and other free stuff, handouts – If you like.

Members of all three branches of government are benefitting from all forms of bribery.

The best what they did so far, they disclose some of this bribery but that’s only another attempt to pretend that this is how democracy works and what they do is democracy.

It is not.

In representative democracy, we elect administrators of our town, county or country and we pay them accordingly and fire when they are not fulfilling tasks which we the people put them in position to do.

We the people overlooked when we gave ownership of this country to a handful of its today’s owners and their puppet politicians against our interest, and they will not give it back willfully.

The closest in recent years to get out of this quagmire was possibility of electing president who run on the platform of getting money out of politics. With popular leader, I believe it would be possible.

Neither Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders were strong enough to break through their own parties controlling establishment. But they got a chance to shake the political system with postulate of eliminating legal corruption.

I’m not sure if they would be able to change to much but at least there would be an opportunity to catalyze the nation in the direction toward Democracy.

Our Country needs a revolution.

Revolution like the first one which brought this nation into existence.

My personal stand is, that no human blood should be spilled in the process. After all I’m pacifist.

Rav Hirsch wrote about the Napoleonic campaign in his essay on the 50^th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations, that even events that are not aligned with Biblical ethics, like war itself, can lead toward the advancement of society in the area of ethics and social ethics. Bonaparte was a bloody dictator but by putting on his banners, slogans of the French revolution he spread the idea of equality and personal freedom among the nations of Europe.

Then came the Spring of the Nations, and then Positivism in literature, and after came the regress of 2 wars and act of murder comparable only to the first act of violence in the history which was killing Abel by his brother Cain.

Why do I see the Holocaust as such? I Can’t answer this in this essay, it is long enough.

After WWII, the United Nations was created and Europe experienced a few decades of Peace first time in its History.

At the beginning of this positive advance of civilization was the French and American revolutions. Those revolutions are still in progress and there will be setbacks, no doubt about it; but much less human blood is being spilled than it used to be in the past and that’s good enough.

America has its own sins to consider.

After revolution came the extermination of the native people of this land. Then kidnaping and enslavement of African people. Those are the two big sins of this nation but the list is much longer.

Nevertheless, some steps were made to recognize and repair the depravities against the Native Americans.

Some steps were made to repair the crime against black people of our country. Still much must be done.

This itself shows that there is progress in social thought, even some back steps are happening at the same time. Allowance of murder of an unborn human being is not a positive development. Undermining the existence of a basic cell of our society, which is family, by propagating what I call Hollywood antifamily values and homosexuality as normal human behavior, are deeply regressive.

And one more powerful statement from now from Jewish American thinker Avram Noam Chomsky - “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged”

That’s almost devastating but thanks G-d, there is more awareness regardless of all attempts to confuse and divide the American people.

Political and social streams go in cycles.

One such cycle was 60/70ties, but social and political awakening was calmed and even pacified in the following decades by giving people even more s… on TV to choose from and six pack available.

Political and moral awareness awaked again in some degree when the powers ruling this country decided to destroy Iraq and destabilize the Middle East.

Many of us knew what is being sold to the American population in order to gain support or to calm them.

For some it was the well lubricated propaganda machine for others, the ability to buy stuff for credit as the banks were giving money without checking to whom.

I don’t believe it was only the banks greed to do so, there was also a push from the government which is not only banks who owns it, there are many other groups of interest who wanted to calm Americans.

Revolution cannot happen without awareness and awareness cannot develop without information.

The Previous decade was the last one where TV and press machine was able to keep everything under control while giving you a mirage of political discourse.

There was no political discourse out of limits which would endanger control of means in hands of the owners of this country.

Internet broke the status quo.

Internet brought back the freedom of information which was granted to Americans as a part of Democracy.

Unfortunately, the same people who kept control using media for the past decades, they are working day and night to use the internet in the same manner.

They may succeed as partially they already did. Don’t forget, Gates and Zuckerberg are now part of the Club, co-owners of the country with tools in their hands to protect their class interest and allow their class to skim you further.

I hope that those few years when they were behind in developing new mechanisms of manipulation and control, this gap will be enough for the rest of us Americans to wake up and revolt.

I do not call, G-d forbid, for any blood or other harm to any human beings.

I hope that we are closer to the time that rabbi Nachman of Breslow called the era when people will be ashamed of killing others in wars, like it is shameful to bow in the front of the idol of clay, wood or gold. I don’t think we are there yet but according to the Nuvim – Jewish Prophets, this is ultimate goal of Humanity – recognition of the Creator and man as His Creation.

The revolution which I call for can happen by using existing political mechanisms of our country.

We can find candidates who will deny and denounce money in politics and vote only for them.

It can happen even within the framework of the two-party system. Bernie Sanders case showed that it is possible to bring a candidate from out of the two-party system if necessary.

I personally don’t care much which party would be used to bring such politicians in order to destroy the current system. Once we will get to Democracy, we will sort what is right and as I mentioned, I believe that an informed society, led by intellectual leaders can make right decisions at voting boots.

The other way to rebel is to stop voting at all. Bring attendance to elections to single digits taking all legitimacy from the ruling class and bring the system to a crush.

What would such a crush would bring? I don’t know, but at least I hope, no life would be lost in the process.

Of course, only one of the options can be chosen and propagated in order for a revolution to win - choosing candidates which election would depend on donations from the citizens and not corporations or complete boycott of the elections.

What about us, Jews faithful to Hashem and His Toira?

We were never completely out of political realm of the countries which HBH send us to in our dispersion but neither willingly into the center of politics.

We are obligated by the prophets and sages to pray for the welfare of the place where we live. Rav Hirsch explicitly advises that we should participate in the political process in the direction bringing G-dly values in to society. Democracy is the system which he sees as a means to achieve this goal and in that sense, the ultimate Goal of the History itself.

There are and will be differences among the Jews regarding these topics as it will be among our other fellow Americans. But once more, nothing can progress without first raising awareness. For us the first step is to cease to deliver official propaganda under Jewish roofs.

That’s point of start and then we will see how again we can serve as yeast for the nations or maybe even light.