ערב שבת קודש פר׳ חיי שרה תשע״ה
 |
| Rabbi Kahane hy"d |
Contributing to a discussion on Facebook regarding Har HaBayith (Temple Mount), and whether to ascend it or not, vis-à-vis recent Arab terrorist attacks and fantastical claims, I wrote the reply below. I could not help, but be sarcastic, when invoking Rabbi Kahane's name, as most people who demonize him are either completely oblivious to Torah, or to its relevance to our lives in contemporary times. Others, believing themselves to be Torah-observant or Torah-oriented, have simply never read any of his works, yet seem to think themselves qualified to criticize him anyway.
Esser Agaroth (2¢):
Who cares what "they" (non-Jews) think? There is only one truth. Rabbi Kahane hy"d (OOOOH! There's that scary name again!) once said [jokingly?] that we should not bother knocking down the Mosques on Har HaBayith, because the Israeli government would just build them bigger and better ones.
Then one participant in this discussion asked, "Don't we have to be pragmatic?"
What we need is emunah (faith). It is fine to say that such and such is not a good strategy for the time being. However, to mince words, and worry about censoring the truth for the sake of the goyim is unacceptable. Rav Kahane hy"d (There's that name again!) said "Say the truth and do the truth, which is Torah, and everything which comes out of that is min HaShamayim." (From Heaven/God's Will) He also said [paraphrase] that one who speaks only 90% of the truth is actually hiding 10% of the truth. We need to continue discussing the truth, and not being afraid to say the truth.
"Eretz Yisrael was given to Am Yisrael. The Temple Mount will be the home of the Third Temple."
See? That wasn't hard, was it? No "hasatah" either. If that's considered incitement, then we're in big trouble, and need many mosrei nefesh (self-sacrificers).
If lives are lost because of words, in other words, stating the truth, then the problem is not the words; the problem is how the Israeli government isn't as Jewish of a government as everyone wants to believe.
Being whiny, nebachy Jews does not work, when dealing with Yishma'elim (Arabs/Muslims). It will only get us killed. This strategy was only marginally successful in Western exile, and then, only some of the time.
We are no longer in exile. Or rather, we no longer have to be in exile, but many of us still choose to be, either physically, or spiritually, or both.
*********
*Hasatah/הסתה - Heb.: incitement. Various forms of incitement are illegal in the State of Israel, such as the incitement to racism and the incitement to violence. Personally, I believe that these laws are excuses to curb free speech in the deMOCKratic State of Israel.
Incitement to commit avodah zarah (foreign/forbidden worship), incitement to profane Shabbath, incitement to defame the Torah appear to be well within the "rights" of citizens of the State of Israel.
*********
Related Posts:
Does Rabbi Kahane Need Defending?
Does the Government of Israel have the Authority of a King?
At Least one [more] Rabbi Knows that the Torah Comes First
No comments:
Post a Comment