Chag Pesach kasher v'sameach! May we witness miracles in our times as we did when we left Egypt. Remember Moshiach may not be here yet...but he is cetrtainly in the neighborhood!

The existential anxiety experienced by many of Israel’s citizens....

The existential anxiety experienced by many of Israel’s citizens is the product of a traumatic history and the all-inclusive draft. A professional volunteer army would release pent-up stress and make it easier for everyone to breathe.

There are situations in life when we must be prepared. Our muscles instinctively tense and our survival mode takes over. The problem begins after the danger has passed and our muscles remain tense from the memory of the fear. The trauma leaves us anxious and stressed, which in turn wastes energy. More than anything else at moments like these, we need someone to tell us that we can relax; that we are already on solid ground.
True, Israel has experienced difficult periods in our past and recent history. We had to protect our lives and we were almost annihilated. But the situation has changed considerably in the last years and today’s Israel can be a bit more relaxed and confident.
Constant anxiety affects the pace of our days, the shortness of breath and intensity of life in Israel. In India it is common to meet Israeli backpackers who have completed their army service sitting in a guest house and smoking drugs: The tension and intensity of life in Israel fade away in India with a little help from chemistry and good friends.
Israeli society can be defined as high-strung. Army service is not exclusively to blame, but it is definitely a major factor in our stress. It’s all inclusive imperative highlights the difficulties and tension in our lives. Sometimes, it also hinders our ability to make balanced decisions. The compulsory draft law is a remnant, like a muscle still flexed because of emergencies that we experienced in the past. Compulsory draft is not only a product of our anxiety, but it perpetuates it. By repealing the compulsory draft we can free the public of its existential anxiety. ”
A closer look at our Jewish sources also shows sensitivity toward personal freedom and rights – even during war. The Torah explicitly prohibits the compulsory draft of soldiers for medical or certain personal reasons. (More on this in Jewish Inspiration).
The pressure that we are under prevents us from thinking of totally different possibilities to improve the IDF. Statistics show that the army is urgently in need of revamping. Even if it is possible to implement far-reaching reforms without repealing the compulsory draft, it appears that this step has greater potential to achieve the desired result. We are certain that many superb young people would enlist for volunteer professional army service. A state for which its citizens are not prepared to fight will not survive.
The time has come to begin to think about replacing the compulsory draft with a professional volunteer army. It is time to relax a bit and to let people live. It is time to begin thinking like a normal country, because for a long time now, we really are a normal country.

With G-d's help, next year most of the Nation of Israel will be in the Land of Israel - before next Pesach.

Shalom to everyone. On the Seder night, the Hagaddah begins with the negative and ends with praise. In this short message, we will do the same.

*

This past week, we once again had a painful reminder of the fact that the State of Israel cannot exist for a long time when it is disconnected from its Jewish foundations. The last round of fighting against the Hamas in Gaza ended with the score of 2:0 - in favor of the Hamas. On one hand, every bus within five kilometers of the Gaza Strip has now become an easy and accessible potential target, while on the other hand, Israel will not dare to carry out targeted assassinations or the abduction of senior Hamas terrorists when those measures mean that all the residents of Ashkelon and Be'er Sheva must stay in bomb shelters.

The military solution is essentially non-existent because the only way to triumph is to capture the Gaza Strip and to establish real Israeli sovereignty over the region. But he who is disconnected form his Jewish foundations cannot see this solution as an option. He is incapable of accepting the fact that Gaza is simply the Land of Israel and that our roots in the city and surrounding area are no less deep than our roots in Tel Aviv. From the mighty Samson through Rabbi Yisrael Najarah and until the 1930's when the Jewish community in Gaza was destroyed, there had always been a Jewish community there.

Are you familiar with the Shabbat songs Yoducha Ra'ayonai or Kah Ribon olam v'olmaya? You've heard them. The next time you hear those songs, remember that they were written in Gaza and that their composers are buried in the Jewish cemetery there.

He who sees only the here and now, he who is disconnected from our past and our destiny in this Land - also has no present. He finds himself running to bomb shelters or to sophisticated protective systems.

It is not only Gaza that we cannot capture without our Jewish foundations - we cannot even justify our presence in Haifa and Be'er Sheva without them. Just one generation after the Holocaust, Europe is no longer inclined to apologize. Our security-based claims sound to them - and in no small measure, justifiably so - like the tears of the Robbed Cossack. When is the last time that you heard an official Israeli representative simply say, "This is our Land"? If we also admit that we occupied a land that is not ours, how can we complain that our children are in danger?

The negation of Israel's legitimate right to exist is spreading like wildfire in the West, IDF officers and Israeli politicians are afraid to leave the country to which they themselves do not understand their connection.

O.K., we also have to leave some time for the positive.

The good news is that despite the confusion, the Nation of Israel is upward bound. As individuals we may be confused, but as a nation we are displaying unbelievable vitality. The birthrate among Jews in Israel is the highest in the Western world - even without the religious factored in. All the Western nations are shrinking and by us, construction of new apartments does not meet growing demand. Israel today is one of the most modern and developed states in the world. We export more to the US than we import - and that is even though we buy more from America than Brazil or India, with its population of a billion. The Western economies are collapsing - while the Israeli shekel is the most stable in the world. Our foreign debt is small and unemployment in Israel is relatively minimal. True, the lack of a balanced Jewish culture of modest spending and loving kindness is currently preventing the wealth from filtering down to all layers of the population, but as we connect to our culture, that will also work out. We're talking about the positive now, remember?

With G-d's help, next year most of the Nation of Israel will be in the Land of Israel - before next Pesach. This demographic status has not occurred since the era of the First Temple!

So what is happening here? On the one hand the physical aspect of our nation is flourishing, while on the other hand we are experiencing spiritual weakness that threatens our continued existence. How can we change this situation? How can we progress? How can we take advantage of our national sovereignty and the great abundance that our Father in heaven is showering upon us and not lose them, G-d forbid?

The answer is leadership. To emerge from our state of mental subservience to genuine national liberty, we need Jewish leadership that will know how to stabilize our national structure on the foundations of our Jewish heritage.

How will we do it? How will we deal with the Arabs? How will we explain it to the Jews? How will we stand up to American pressure? We have answers to all those questions and more.

You can start by reading our articles, arranged on the Jewish Leadership website by categories . Check out Tomorrow Magazine for more details on various issues. And most important of all, get our ideas out through your own blogs and social media outlets.

We are entering Pesach 5771 with great hope. With G-d's help, we will greet Jonathan Pollard, Gilad Shalit and all our other captives this year. All the wounded and sick will completely recover and all of our dreams will be realized in the very best way.

Reality is nudging our nation into a new consciousness - Jewish consciousness. We are building an alternative and with G-d's help, we will soon lead our nation and complete the journey that our ancestors began in Egypt 3,013 years ago - on the Temple Mount.

I wish you a happy and kosher Festival of Freedom.

Can Israel Withstand the Mounting International Pressure?: By Moshe Feiglin

3 Nissan, 5771
April 7, '11

It is worthwhile to watch this film clip of Samantha Power, a senior director on the National Security Council, one of the most influential people in the Obama administration. The two main points that Power makes in this interview, no holds barred, are the necessity to establish a strong army for the "Palestinians" (instead of "investing billions" in the Israeli army) and the necessity to enforce the political solution that she suggests with "massive" force.

As hallucinatory as Power's words may seem now, it is worthwhile to remember that the negation of Israel's right to exist, which was once the rhetoric of terror organizations and Arab states alone, has now become a central and legitimate topic throughout Europe. When a person of Power's stature speaks like this today, she clearly charts out the strategic course for the US and Europe tomorrow.

This week, Tony Blair, the Quartet's official envoy to the Middle East, announced that Europe would accept the Hamas as a negotiating partner. He refused to make that contingent on the terror organization's recognition of Israel's right to exist. Simply put, first we will take whatever you give us and then when you are helpless, we will swallow up the rest.

Shimon Peres, of course, rushed to join in the chorus and after his meeting this week with the US President announced with no small measure of identification that "Obama wants progress - not just another show." Our honored president has begged for a meeting with Obama for a long time and was willing to pay the price: adding his own voice to the international pressure being weaved around Jerusalem. Peres does not need much coaxing. His dream of a new Middle East perfectly complements Power's declarations.

Time and again Israel's public relations representatives have emphasized the fact that there is no connection between the uprisings in the Arab world and the Israel-Arab conflict. The world, though, is not interested in the facts. But we must at least understand that it makes no difference how much we will give to placate the Arabs and the world. As long as one grain of sand in the Land of Israel remains under Israeli sovereignty, they will not be satisfied.

"He said that the Arabs are not afraid of our expansion. They negate our very presence, as a foreign implant. 'The question is,' he said, 'will you be able to muster forces to establish the state larger than the forces that we will concentrate to prevent it?'"
(Abba Eban reports on his conversation with the secretary of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, September, 1947).

Nothing much has changed since 1947. We are not engaged in a border conflict with the Arabs. They are totally unwilling to accept our sovereign existence in the Land of Israel. It is not despair at their lack of sovereignty that motivates the Arabs against us. On the contrary. It is their hope to negate our sovereignty here that keeps them going. That is why every small piece of land that we give them adds fuel to their bonfire of hope. It intensifies the conflict and the international pressure that invariably comes on its heels.

Both the Western and Arab worlds are weaker today than ever before. They will be at our throats only if we open the gates of Jerusalem to them. Israel's problem is not the military danger or the economic sanctions that a Western coalition will likely institute against us. We are fully capable of protecting our interests and emerging from this sort of crisis with an improved international standing and deterrence. Our problem is inside. Are we capable of relying on our internal sense of justice, on our ancient culture, on our faith in G-d? Or do we still worship America?

Experience has proven that we do not have the ability to speed up the maturation of consciousness enveloping Israeli society. We won the Gush Katif referendum and the race for the Knesset, but it didn't help. We must understand that until the public consciousness reaches a vital critical mass, no technical victory will change reality.

That is why Manhigut Yehudit is focused now on introducing a new, Jewish way of thinking into Israeli society. We are still in politics and will continue to do all that is necessary to win. But in order to get elected, the public must understand that there is a viable and attractive alternative for which it can vote. We must be perceived by the public as the solution - and not as part of the problem. We must remain accessible and relevant, ready for the moment that the Nation of Israel will seek out authentic faith-based leadership to lead it into the new, G-dly world reality.

Israel's Requirement from HaShem

Why do we have so many splintered ideas? Our outline is Torah. Our King is HaShem.
What we need to do is clear. Why do we as a people not speak out? What are we afraid of?
They didn't bomb the trains. The pogroms were allowed to happen. Blood libel is never punished.
Moneychangers and scapegoats, the hurdles we were given to simply have the opportunity to speak out and defend ourselves...but most importantly defend HaShem. That is all this about.
The Reform movement is getting anew "Head Rabbi" - Jacobs....and he is board member of J STREET!
OMG, they are nuts. I was born to a Reform family and Temple. These guys are exiting Judaism. There kids marry out and their children wear crosses! Scary!
We are pressuring the wrong people. Instead of fighting the Arab/Moooslim/Goyim Propaganda....we need to pressure Bibi and the Knesset to do the right thing. We need to create social action groups in the Galut to help the Right in Israel make Israel the Jewish state and give up the humanist nonsense.
We need to consolidate our bond drive money and tree money and all of the $$ we send to Israel and use it to control some results...The Israeli Government is the problem. They are weak, secular politicians. We need to get Manhigut Yehudit in power with Feiglin or National Union or.... Whomever will enforce the will of the Israeli people, directed by Torah and HaShem.  Take back the Temple Mount - retake Gaza, Judea and Samaria, annex them. Start expelling Arabs and deporting all displaced "Refugees" with passports to their country of origin (Jordan).
World opinion is irrelevant, it is all Goldstone and Moooslim. The problem is we don't stand up for Israel in the Galut. All we ever do is try to motivate Jews to justify Israels right to exist. Enough of this weak effort to be accepted, it is far past time to only listen to HaShem and clear the land already! Get rid of the thorns!
No more smooth, nice talk. No more money need be accepted. Don't tell the US anything...just do what needs to done and ignore monetary threats. Build our own Merkava's and Jets! Enforce the laws without preference to not causing the Arabs trouble! No more foreign Arab workers!
Kahane Tzadak!

Jewish Rights on the Temple Mount: The Acid Test: By Moshe Feiglin

25 Adar Bet, 5771
March 31, '11

It is just one of the laws of nature here in the Middle East. When the Arabs feel that we are not determined to maintain Israeli sovereignty over our Land, when we apologize all the time and project transience, when they understand that we are not motivated by the feeling that we are right, the missiles and bombs are just a matter of time. It is not the massacre in Itamar, the rockets on Be'er Sheva or the bomb in Jerusalem that should surprise us, but the relatively long time that the façade of quiet held up.

The point where we lost our spirit and feeling of justness has a name and an exact topographical location: It is the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is the quintessence of the Land of Israel. There is no place holier to the Jews - and only to the Jews - than this place. There is no other place in the world that has been the focal point of our prayers and our destiny over the millennia. The entire trek of Abraham, Moses and King David leads us to the Temple Mount. Without it, our presence in Israel loses its meaning.

The Nation of Israel has longed for the Temple Mount throughout 2000 long and cruel years of exile. It is this longing and focus that preserved our Jewish identity and that brought us back to our Land. It is also the dynamic that provided the national foundation for the establishment of the State of Israel.

The Temple Mount was liberated during the Six Days of Miracles. The paratroop commander announced, "The Temple Mount is in our hands" and a wave of jubilation swept over us all; religious and secular, alike.

But just a few hours after the Temple Mount was liberated, the Israeli flag was removed from the site. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan gave the keys to the Mount to the Moslem wakf. Ever since then, the legitimacy for Israel's existence has slowly but surely eroded. "He who rules the Mount rules the Land," wrote poet of faith and rebuke Uri Tzvi Greenberg. He understood that the grand victory parades were obscuring the fact that when we left the Temple Mount, we lost the war.

Today, almost 44 years later, Jews essentially have almost no rights on the Temple Mount. Try your luck and go to the Temple Mount - not as a tourist, but as a Jew. Put a kippah on your head and try to say a few words of Psalms or any other prayer. Before you are even allowed to enter the Mount, you will be detained at the side while all the tourists enter. Then you will be subjected to a thorough search - just in case you, Heaven forefend, are carrying a book of Psalms or prayer book. When you enter, a wakf worker and a policeman - often a Moslem, as well - will accompany you and scrutinize your every move. If your lips move in prayer - and it makes no difference if nobody else is there - the wakf worker will tell the policeman, who will hurriedly arrest you and take you off to the police station.

All of this is a patent violation of the basic human right of the Jewish People to pray at the place most holy to them - but the "human rights" organizations could not care less. The Supreme Court explains time and again that it is permissible for a Jew to pray on the Temple Mount, but that it is up to police discretion to authorize each prayer. It is actually just a game. The Supreme Court awards the police with responsibility when it fits its agenda; to negate the most basic rights of the Jews in their own Land.

It is on the Temple Mount that we lost the justness of our hold on this Land. He who consciously gave the royal crown to his enemy can no longer claim that his presence in any other part of the Land is just - not in Tel Aviv and not in Haifa.

***

On Tuesday, the Knesset Interior Committee, chaired by MK David Azulai of Shas, held a hearing on the violation of the rights of the Jews on the Temple Mount. The hearing was summoned by Coalition Chairman MK Ze'ev Elkin along with MKs Yariv Levin, Tzippy Hotobeli, Uri Ariel, Michael Ben Ari and Aryeh Eldad in the aftermath of the report on Jewish Rights at the Temple Mount recently published by Manhigut Yehudit.

Police "representative" in the Knesset, MK and former Police Chief Aryeh Bibi attempted to claim that the discriminatory and scandalous behavior of the police on the Temple Mount is caused by Jewish provocations. Police Chief of the Old City Avi Ruoeff also attempted to make similar claims. Arab MKs present at the hearing attempted to claim that all the trouble was being made by an "extremist and dangerous" Jewish fringe group.

These attempts, which had been successful in the past, totally failed. The police representatives embarrassed themselves with their contradictions and lies.

The faithful to the Land and the Temple prevailed not because of the power of their claims, but because of the stature of the claimants. MKs Uri Ariel, Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben Ari spoke eloquently and did excellent work. But when the key speaker is Coalition Chairman MK Ze'ev Elkin and he is followed by Likud MKs Yariv Levin, Tzippy Hotobeli and even MK Otniel Schneller from Kadimah, the hearing cannot be squelched simply by demonizing the claimants.

At the next hearing, the police will be required to present the committee with the rules for ascent to the Temple Mount, the list of people prohibited from entering the Mount and the reasons for their disqualification and - most importantly - an explanation of what the police consider a 'provocation.' Is it a provocation to enter the Mount with a Jewish prayer book? Wearing an IDF uniform?

Michael Fuah and I were at the hearing. We did not speak. But everyone present knew that without Manhigut Yehudit the entire hearing would not have taken place.

The position of the Israeli government and Israel's Police force on Jewish rights on the Temple Mount is an acid test for the State of Israel's commitment to its Jewish identity and its democracy. We will continue to work hard on this issue, which is a reflection of the state of our sovereignty over the entire Land.