Friday, July 30, 2010
The Bridge: A Letter to Manhigut Yehudit Members from Moshe Feiglin
When Manhigut Yehudit set out - and especially after we joined the Likud and I declared my candidacy for the head of the Likud, many experts warned us that we were jumping into a shark's pool. "Either they will eat you alive," they predicted, "or you will become one of them."
Thank G-d, we did not heed the warnings, and today, ten years later, we have not been eaten alive and we have not turned into ordinary politicians. Even though I am not a Knesset Member, I am identified as such more than the real MKs and ministers. We are simultaneously both inside and outside the "shark's pool" (which, by the way, contains many friendly sharks, as well). We are positioned in a way that makes it hard for the sharks to sink their teeth into us. Unless we forget what we are doing in the pool, in the first place. When that happens, we become vulnerable to all the rules of the pool and are unceremoniously eaten.
When we set out, the idea of a faith-based prime ministerial candidate seemed preposterous. We were perceived as a naive group that was playing make-believe against all odds. But now, ten years later, we can safely claim success. Faith-based candidacy for the role of prime minister has become part of the political scene in Israel, we achieved second place in the last primaries for head of the Likud and the fierce opposition to my candidacy proved to all just how serious of a threat we are to the existing political culture.
Manhigut Yehudit's initial and sole focus was on public awareness. Our message reached the religious-nationalist sector, but not far beyond it. When we joined the Likud, the gates to the entire Nation of Israel were opened to us. The more progress we made in the Likud, the more attention our message received. There is no doubt about it - it was right to join the Likud.
However, the dynamics of our political progress sometimes blurred the fact that for us, politics is nothing but a means to an end. Our goal is to change the public mindset. But Israel's national mentality cannot extricate itself from its dead end without a new awareness that comes from outside it.
So was it a mistake to enter politics? Maybe we should have remained a strictly ideological movement? But on the other hand, we would not have been able to influence the broad public outside politics and outside the Likud. It is confusing, but that is just the point. Manhigut Yehudit is the bridge between the existing reality and the future reality. On one hand we are firmly planted on both banks. On the other hand, when we shift our weight from one bank to the next, the entire bridge shakes.
At the present, it seems that we have exhausted the political bank. It is now time for us to re-focus on energies on the ideological bank. This means that we will minimize our criticism of the existing reality and invest all our energies into creating an ideological alternative.
We must propose specific alternatives to the public - show them how with a solid base of Jewish consciousness, we would successfully navigate the crises that our country faces. The first step is to create an independent ideological platform that will describe the proposed authentic Jewish State in fascinating terms - and to publicize it in universities and colleges, and not just within the national-religious sector.
The goal that we have set for ourselves is revolutionary; no less difficult than the goals we have taken upon ourselves until now. But if we succeed, the bridge that we have begun to build from the current reality to the authentically Jewish State - will be completed.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Conversion Controversy in Israel: Not Very Complicated
The Jewish Nation is alive today in the merit of its attachment to G-d. Our wondrous history and the very fact that the Nation of Israel is eternal testify to His existence. The Jewish Nation has a pact - a covenant - with the Master of the Universe. G-d frees us from the laws of nature and makes us an eternal nation and we cling to Him and testify to His existence. There is no other nation that has consistently starred on the stage of human history, been intricately involved with all the empires throughout the ages - and survived. It is a wonder outside the bounds of the laws of history.
There is a caveat, though. G-d's promise of national eternity is reserved for those who cling to Him. All those sects of Judaism that considered themselves "liberated" from the basic pact with our Father in heaven have eventually dropped out of Judaism altogether. All the sects that revised the Torah as per the dictates or constraints of the times - from the Second Temple era desert sects to "Progressive" Judaism - eventually lost their charm and were erased from the pages of Jewish history, or are on their way to dropping out.
In our day, the Reform movement has become the dominant movement for Jewish assimilation. This movement is now demanding that the Jewish State relax the requirements for conversion to Judaism.
The rationale that preserves the authority for conversion in the hands of the stream of Judaism that perpetuates the tradition of the covenant with G-d, the stream that is loyal to the Oral Law - is stronger by far than any flaw that may be found in Orthodox Judaism. A person who would like to be a Jew according to Jewish law must convert according to the requirements of that very same law. It is as simple as that.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The Temple Mount: Part I & 2 - Prof. Paul Eidelberg
1. We need to publicize the idea that Jewish control of Israel’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, the Har HaBayit, on which stood the Beit HaMikdash, is a precondition of uncontested Jewish control of an undivided Jerusalem and the restoration of Jewish national honor. Once Jews maintain unequivocal control of the Temple Mount, the United States will move its embassy to Jerusalem—which will produce a shock wave across the world.
2. Conversely, so long as the Muslim Authority (the Wakf) controls and desecrates the Temple Mount, the nations will despise Israel and kowtow to the Arab-Islamic world. Muslim desecration of the Temple Mount not only exposes Jewish weakness, but increases Muslim arrogance and even incites Islamic violence everywhere.
3. Jewish development of the Temple Mount would not only be the pinnacle of Jewish restoration of Jerusalem; it would also inflict a tremendous blow on the ambitions of Muslims who regard Jerusalem is the key to their global ambitions.
4. The Wakf has long been violating the Law of Antiquities and the Law of Planning. The Muslims are erasing all historical evidence of Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. The government knows this and has cravenly said they have no intention of interfering.
5. Of course, exclusive Jewish control of the Temple Mount is linked to Jewish control of Judea and Samaria. (But see below, point 13.)
6. To show that the Temple Mount is the key to the world-historical function of the Jewish people prescribed in the Tenach, I shall now quote various passages from Joshua Berman’s book, The Temple.
7. The Temple, he writes, represents “the spiritual center of the country. Here, at the site where God's presence is most immanent, the representatives of the Jewish people execute commandments and rites that symbolize the service of the nation as a whole.”
8. It should also be noted that any non-Jew, so long as he adheres to the Seven Noahide Laws of Universal Morality, can bring certain “sacrifices” to the Temple.
9. The Temple—“a house for God's Name”— symbolizes “a public declaration of God's sovereignty. The ambition of declaring God's sovereignty in the world, which was initiated by Abraham, is the calling of the Jewish people.”
10. Berman goes on to say: “God's acclaim in the world is a direct function of how Israel is perceived [by the nations].” Israel must become a great country. “A great country should possess political stability at home and should be at peace with its neighbors. It should possess a strong economy and should be home to a culture that boasts strong [moral and intellectual] virtues.” Israel did not become such a nation until the reign of King David, and it was left to his son Solomon to build the (first) Temple. All nations then flocked to Jerusalem, which was recognized not only as the City of Peace but the City of Truth.
11. “The function of the Temple as a symbol for God's acclaim in the world reaches its apex with the visit of the queen of Sheba to Solomon’s court”—Solomon, the wisest of kings. Ponder, therefore, these verses of Isaiah 2:1-3: “And many nations will go and cry, ‘Let us go up the to mountain of God's house, to the house of the Lord of Jacob, and we will learn from His ways and walk in His paths, for out of Zion goes forth the Torah and the word of God from Jerusalem.’”
12. Now let us consider Rabbi Chaim Richman’s essay, “A Third Jewish Temple” (May 18, 2000), where he says: "People assume those who are interested in the Temple are radical elements opposed to peace.” Alluding to the era of King Solomon, Rabbi Richman points out that the Temple Mount represents “the hallmark of the greatest era known to man.... This place has been sanctified by God from the beginning of time.... Here Jacob laid his head. Here Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac.... Of the 613 commandments in the Torah, 113 of them depend on the existence of a Jewish Temple. We have not received a cancellation order for any of the commandments issued at Mount Sinai."
13. Public opinion must therefore be educated about the Temple, about its significance in Judaism. Obviously, the present government will not do this. It does not really represent the Jewish people. At least 25% of Israel’s Jewish population is religious, and at least 50% is traditional. The Jewish people were not consulted when, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, without Knesset or public discussion, endorsed a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, Israel's heartland. There is no reason to believe, therefore, that this orator with a golden tongue and clay feet will stand firm on the issue of Jerusalem and the Har HaBayit.
Hence, a network of cells across the nation must be established by Jewish youth and venerable rabbis to vigorously oppose the surrender of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Preliminary weekly demonstrations for this purpose are necessary, led by youth and venerable rabbis. Denounce Netanyahu's mendacious policy of "reciprocity," which is an insult to your intelligence as well as to your love and fidelity to the Holy Land on which alone you can endure and flourish as the People of God.
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
It was pointed out in Part I that Jewish control of the Temple Mount, Israel’s holiest site, is a fundamental precondition of uncontested Jewish control of Jerusalem and, eventually, of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel. Moreover, Jewish control over the Temple Mount will restore to the Jewish people the esteem of the nations and enable Israel to fulfill its historical mission: to declare from Jerusalem—from Zion—God’s sovereignty in the world.
It needs to be emphasized that the first concern of any statesman worthy of the name is national unity. But that is precisely what the Temple symbolizes for the Jewish people.
Let us recur to Joshua Berman’s The Temple, to clarify the Temple’s vital significance.
The Temple represents the entire congregation of Israel. The tribes ascended to Jerusalem, gathered in the Temple courtyard, there to encounter God. Berman cites Psalm 122:
A song of ascents, of David:
"I rejoiced when they said to me,
'We are going to the house of the Lord.'
Our feet stood inside your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem built up, a city knit together,
To which tribes would make pilgrimage,
The tribes of the Lord—as was enjoined upon Israel—
To praise the Name of the Lord."
From Jerusalem the Priests and Levites went out across the land and taught the laws and precepts of the Torah. Not only the Temple but also “the city of Jerusalem was considered the source of authoritative values.” Isaiah (2:4) declares: “For instruction shall come forth from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
Berman asks: “What does Jerusalem mean for us today?” He answers: “All of the dimensions that animated and invigorated the spiritual meaning of Jerusalem for the psalmist centuries ago, have returned to animate her—if on a diminished scale—again today, two thousand years later. We await the reinstatement of the Davidic king, but we can already see in Jerusalem today the seat of a sovereign Jewish government…."
“We have no formal guild of Priests and Levites who bring the word of God out from Zion, but Jerusalem is today the world capital of Jewish learning of all forms. We do not fulfill the halakhic requirement of gathering as a nation on the pilgrimage of the festivals in the Temple courtyard, yet Jews from all over the world flock to Jerusalem and to the Western Wall on each of these occasions. Jerusalem today stands as a symbol of the unity of the Jewish people as the largest Jewish city in the world, and the point to which all Jews look as the center of the Jewish world.”
“The rebuilding of the Temple,” says Berman, “needs to be seen as the pinnacle of a process that is measured in collective and national terms…. Zionism, from a religious perspective, ought to be perceived as a movement dedicated to building a nation around the highest ideals of the Zion of old—around a city that stands as a symbol of Jewish sovereignty on the land, justice, the wisdom of the Torah, Jewish unity, and the opportunity for collective encounter between the Almighty and His people, Israel.”
Epilogue:
The nations are conspiring to wrest Jerusalem from the Jewish people. Islam knows it can never conquer the world so long as Jerusalem is in the hands of the Jews. Jerusalem, the City of Truth, reveals Islam as false, a fabrication of men. This is why it's absurd for Israel to engage in negotiations with Muslims—as if the Truth is negotiable.
The conflict between Israel and Islam is the final conflict of mankind, and this conflict centers on Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. It is not merely a conflict between freedom and tyranny, but between Truth and Falsehood, between the God of Israel and the false god of Islam. The failure to recognize the theological nature of this conflict— and that Human Reason itself and Human Dignity are at stake in this conflict—is precisely what is driving the democratic nations insane, as Melanie Phillips shows in her book The World Turned Upside Down.
Know, therefore, that if Islam were to gain possession of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, the Dark Ages would descend upon mankind. The world's economy would shut down completely. Hundreds of millions of human beings would perish of hunger, disease, and global bloodshed.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, that it remain in Jewish hands.
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