Time to resurrect this blog and start posting again. There is just too much out there that needs to be shared. One of my favortie sites is Little Green Footballs since they come up with some great stuff, not to mention good analysis.
Even for someone like me who expects very little in the way of ethics from the astoundingly biased NGO Human Rights Watch, this report is a jawdropper.
The author of the last HRW report accusing Israel of “war crimes” is a radical Marxist who has written in explicit support of terrorist violence against Israel — and even applauded the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics: Who Is Human Rights Watch’s Joe Stork?
Just received this from Aish.com. Sometimes things hit me and others just go right by. This one, for some reason had a big impact. Not that I have been planning revenge, but just the idea that wishing anyone else ill is not healthy for me, I thought was pretty profound. I tend to be one who hopes there is justice in the world to come, as it obvious that this world often lacks it. I suspect there are many views on this one in the Jewish tradition. Feel free to comment if youa re fmailiar with them.
17 Shvat
May no person be made to suffer on my account. (Siddur, Prayer on Retiring)
Although the Torah does not require people to love their enemies, it does demand restraint, in the sense of not seeking revenge (Leviticus 19:18). The Talmud extends this concept to forbid not only the act of revenge, but even a prayer that God should punish our enemies. “If someone is punished on account of another person, the latter is not admitted to the Divine Presence, for as Solomon says in Proverbs (17:16), For the righteous, too, punishment is not good” (Shabbos 149b).
When Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berdichev’s adversaries expelled his family from town during his absence, his colleagues asked Rabbi Wolf of Zhitomir to invoke the Divine wrath upon them for their heinous deed. “I cannot do anything,” Rabbi Wolf said, “because Rabbi Levi Yitzchok has anticipated us and is now standing before the open Ark, praying fervently that no harm come to them.”
Actions like this incident may appear to be the ultimate of magnanimity, but it is not necessarily so. To the contrary, they can also be understood as helping one’s own interests. If we pray that another person be punished for his or her misdeeds, we become vulnerable ourselves (see 3 Kislev), for the Divine sense of justice may then bring our own actions under greater scrutiny. After all, is it not reasonable to expect a high standard of personal conduct in someone who invokes harsh treatment of his neighbors? Consequently, it is wiser to seek forgiveness for others and thereby merit forgiveness for ourselves than to pray for absolute justice and stern punishment for others’ misdeeds and thereby expose ourselves to be similarly judged.
Today I shall …
… try to avoid wishing harm to anyone, even to those who have greviously offended me.
I missed this horrible story when it appeared last month. Denmark used to be known for the moral courage of its people. Maybe not so much today:
Headmaster Olav Nielsen of Humlehave School in Odense publicly admitted he would refuse Jewish parents’ wish to place their child at his school.The comments were made following an incident last week in which two Israeli citizen’s were shot and wounded at a city shopping centre. Police believe the incident was a reaction to the Gaza conflict.
Other headmasters have now come forth to support Nielsen’s position, adding that they are putting the child’s safety first.
GAZA CITY, Feb. 6 — A United Nations aid agency that serves more than half of the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip suspended humanitarian shipments here on Friday, accusing Hamas of confiscating U.N. material for the second time this week.
I guess now we can just sit back and wait for all the ‘human rights groups” and news stories that will condemn the U.N. for collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza. On second thought, let’s not hold our breath on that one.
I love how the U.N Spokesman has to apologize for Hamas even while he condemns them. So now it is not just Israel saying that Hamas is stealing humanitarian aid but the U.N. and Jordan too. The obvious gets harder to deny everyday.
Hamas gunman on Tuesday night stormed a Gaza City warehouse belonging to the United Nations and seized 3,500 blankets and 400 parcels of food meant for needy and hungry local residents.
UN spokesman Christopher Gunness described the perpetrators to the Associated Press as paramilitary police officers.
Gunness claimed that it was the first incident of Hamas hijacking aid to Gaza, but Israeli officials say much more aid has been stolen, usually while still en route to the UN warehouses.
Jordanian media has reported similar incidents of Hamas hijacking aid provided by the Hashemite Kingdom.
While most of the world lambasts Israel over the hundreds of people killed during the recent Gaza war, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday placed the blame where it really belongs: with the Hamas terrorist organization that rules the territory and provoked the harsh Israeli offensive.
In a speech marking Egypt’s national day to honor its police forces, Mubarak asked: “How long will Arab blood continue to be spilled, only to hear those who admit to miscalculating the scope and scale of Israel’s response?”
According to Ha’aretz, Mubarak’s remark was a swipe at Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who recently stated from his headquarters in Damascus that his group had grossly underestimated how Israel would respond to its escalating rocket fire.
Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah had a similar lament following the Second Lebanon War in 2006, which was sparked by a cross-border terrorist raid.
Just as happened in 2002 when the Palestinians screamed about a massacre in Jenin that supposedly killed over 500, and then it was discovered that the death toll was less than 50, the truth is coming out about the lies of the recent Gaza War.
Canada’s Globe & Mail finds out what really happened in an in-depth investigative report by the Canadian Globe and Mail’s Middle East correspondent, Patrick Martin.
Martin’s front-page report investigated the Israeli shelling of Hamas terrorists near a UN school that led to the tragic deaths of 43 civilians. His conclusion: the facts don’t support the accepted story that the school itself was shelled.
Not only was it front page news when Israel supposedly shelled the UN School, but at the time John Ging, UNRWA’s operations director in Gaza, condemned the attack as “horrific” and suggested Israel knew it was targeting a UN facility
It hasn’t made the front pages elsewhere that Ging this week acknowledged in an interview with Martin that all three Israeli mortar shells landed outside the school and that “no one was killed in the school.”
The fact that people were milling around the area where Hamas was firing rockets is not Israel’s fault, but rather points out that Hamas fired from an area frequented by civilians, engaging in what former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls a double war crime: “Attacking [Israeli] civilians and hiding behind [Palestinian] civilians.”
I just read a most powerful letter originally published in one of Israel’s newspapers. It is a powerful testament to humanity in the midst of war. The complete letter is more powerful than the exerpts below and can be found at:
While the world watches the ruins in Gaza, you return to your home which remains standing. However, I am sure that it is clear to you that someone was in your home while you were away.
I am that someone.
I spent long hours imagining how you would react when you walked into your home. How you would feel when you understood that IDF soldiers had slept on your mattresses and used your blankets to keep warm………………….
I spent many days in your home. You and your family’s presence was felt in every corner. I saw your family portraits on the wall, and I thought of my family. I saw your wife’s perfume bottles on the bureau, and I thought of my wife. I saw your children’s toys and their English language schoolbooks. I saw your personal computer and how you set up the modem and wireless phone next to the screen, just as I do. …………………I wanted you to know that despite the immense disorder you found in your house that was created during a search for explosives and tunnels (which were indeed found in other homes), we did our best to treat your possessions with respect. When I moved the computer table, I disconnected the cables and lay them down neatly on the floor, as I would do with my own computer. I even covered the computer from dust with a piece of cloth. I tried to put back the clothes that fell when we moved the closet although not the same as you would have done, but at least in such a way that nothing would get lost. …………………………………
I can surmise that you are intelligent and educated and there are those in your household that are university students. Your children learn English, and you are connected to the Internet. You are not ignorant; you know what is going on around you.
Therefore, I am sure you know that Qassam rockets were launched from your neighborhood into Israeli towns and cities.
How could you see these weekly launches and not think that one day we would say “enough”?! Did you ever consider that it is perhaps wrong to launch rockets at innocent civilians trying to lead a normal life, much like you? How long did you think we would sit back without reacting?
I can hear you saying “it’s not me, it’s Hamas”. My intuition tells me you are not their most avid supporter. If you look closely at the sad reality in which your people live, and you do not try to deceive yourself or make excuses about “occupation”, you must certainly reach the conclusion that the Hamas is your real enemy.
The reality is so simple, even a seven year old can understand: Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip, removing military bases and its citizens from Gush Katif. Nonetheless, we continued to provide you with electricity, water, and goods (and this I know very well as during my reserve duty I guarded the border crossings more than once, and witnessed hundreds of trucks full of goods entering a blockade-free Gaza every day). ………………………………………
My friend, I would like to call you by name, but I will not do so publicly. I want you to know that I am 100% at peace with what my country did, what my army did, and what I did. However, I feel your pain. I am sorry for the destruction you are finding in your neighborhood at this moment. On a personal level, I did what I could to minimize the damage to your home as much as possible.
Instead of sinking into self-pity, build a flourishing and prospering country.
In my opinion, we have a lot more in common than you might imagine. I am a civilian, not a soldier, and in my private life I have nothing to do with the military. However, I have an obligation to leave my home, put on a uniform, and protect my family every time we are attacked. I have no desire to be in your home wearing a uniform again and I would be more than happy to sit with you as a guest on your beautiful balcony, drinking sweet tea seasoned with the sage growing in your garden.
The only person who could make that dream a reality is you. Take responsibility for yourself, your family, your people, and start to take control of your destiny. How? I do not know. Maybe there is something to be learned from the Jewish people who rose up from the most destructive human tragedy of the 20th century, and instead of sinking into self-pity, built a flourishing and prospering country. It is possible, and it is in your hands.
Rabbi Donniel Hartmann of the Shalom Hartman Institute did a wonderful 8 minute video discussing the moral challenges of waging war in a city full of civilians. Is war itself moral? If so, can a moral war be waged immorally? What is the relation beteen a just war and a war fought justly? He skillfully navigates the questions every person concerned with the ethics of war has.
The first 30 seconds have some feedback, but it goes away quickly, so stick it out.
I read many different blogs, particularly in the fundraising and marketing fields. One of my favorite is an old college friend who became one of the marketing gurus of our age, Seth Godin. Seth not only has a great perspective to share on business and marketing, but his perspectives on life are pretty special too.
But in one of his latest posts, a partial tribute to his mother specifically done not on Mother’s Day, Seth notes that his mother didn’t like Mother’s day because:
she pointed out that anytime you do something because you’re supposed to, or because everyone else is doing it, it’s not worth as much. Flowers the week before or a nice poem the day after were priceless compared to the trudge to the restaurant on the appointed day.
I used to think the same way as Seth’s mom. Then I learned the Jewish teaching that something done out of obligation is a greater mitzvah, a greater good deed or commandment, than something you do out of free choice.
It seems rather odd when viewed through the lens of the modern world. Aren’t random acts of kindness one of the highest ideals in our society? Isn’t that encouraging word, the poem, the flowers given on a day where you are not obligated to do so a greater gift?
Perhaps it is a greater gift to do the nice thing when it is unexpected. But, nevertheless, the Talmud teaches us that it is no substitute for the real thing, that is, doing it when you are supposed to do it.
When I was younger, whenever I came across Jewish teachings that made no sense to me, I rejected them. After all, Reform Judaism teaches that we should do the mitzvot that are meaningful to us and it is o.k. to drop the ones that are not. As I grew older and learned more, I realized that if I disagreed with a teaching from the Jewish tradition, perhaps it was my frame of reference that was flawed.
After all, my values came from my parents who were not particularly well versed in Jewish law and tradition, from my teachers in the public schools who were mostly Christian, and from my friends and colleagues who were not observant Jews either. Hmmm, maybe there is something to learn from a tradition that has survived 3000 plus years.
So why would the Talmud teach that is a greater mitzvah to do something out of obligation than it is to do so out of mere goodwill?
As I understand the answer, it is that if we do it out of obligation, the odds are that much greater that we will continue to do it and we will do so regularly. Thus instead of random acts of kindness, Jewish tradition teaches us to make acts of kindness a regular part of our day, not random, and not just when we feel like it. Instead of giving charity because it feels good, we must give tzedakah (loosely translated as charity but literally translated as justice) because it is just to give to those in need whether we feel like it or not.
And as much as we might not like to honor Mom on Mother’s Day because it seems too commercialized, we should do it then. Of course we should also do it every other day as well. After all, the Torah doesn’t teach us that we have to love our parents, but it does teach that we must “honor your mother and your father.”
I suppose I didn’t do that well enough when Mom was alive; do any of us? I hope I made up for it a little bit during the 11 months I said kaddish for her everyday. A chronicle of that journey and a resource I hope will benefit all Jews in mourning can be found at http://KaddishJournal.com. It is now a community journal for anyone to share thoughts, memories, and the pain and love of loss. You don’t have to visit it, but if you do feel obligated to, it might influence you to do so on a regular basis.
