Mar 13, 2011
The Lou Church Memorial Lecture in Religion and Economics presented by Mustafa Akyol at the Austrian Scholars Conference on 12 March 2011, at Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno.
I said, once I was out of striking range.
But-but… he has Ruach Kodesh!
“Korach had Ruach Hakodesh!”
(Meaning, one level under Nevuah, not the simpler kind)
Elazar Stern is hated by many for his central role in perpetrating the Expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif, but other reasons exist, as well. His integration of Hesder students into the regular army platoons (around the same time as the Expulsion, too) wasn’t appreciated by many in the Dati camp.
The best story in Elazar Stern’s autobiography, “Struggling over Israel’s Soul: An IDF General Speaks of His Controversial Moral Decisions” is on p. 244.
Assuming Daddy got permission to tell the following cheery anecdote:
One Saturday morning, my daughter Adi was the officer on duty on her base, and she went to pray in the synagogue. When prayers ended, the soldiers sat down together to eat breakfast, and at the meal, Adi met five yeshiva boys from the settlement of Peduel. The boys asked her what her name was and where she was from. She answered, “My name is Adi and I’m from Hoshaya.” The soldiers responded immediately, “The village where that filthy Stern lives?!” and they proceeded to curse me out.
Adi asked them calmly if they had ever learned any manners or a least not to gossip. Then she cut them off and said, “You didn’t ask me what my last name is. It’s Stern. Now, thanks to you, there is another issue on which I disagree with my father. He should have kept the Hesder students in separate units, so that I wouldn’t have to be around any of you.”
Do all Hesder youth chat with girls so freely?! And yet, to take the lady at her word, would a non-promiscuous woman in the army truly prefer non-Hesder soldiers (ceteris paribus)?
Throughout the book (p. 268, 289) Stern describes his daughters as religious (well, as much as he himself, anyway!).
Meanwhile, Stern himself suppressed serious complaints of sexual abuse when approached for help by women under his command…
Don’t forget to save the link.
Excerpt from Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff:
The Moslem construction is without any permits and is illegal. However, the Israeli authorities refuse to interfere, citing concerns about violence! One of the Waqf’s goals is to obliterate any remnants of the Batei HaMikdash from the Har HaBayis so that they can persist with their lie that Jews never lived in Israel and that the Batei HaMikdash never existed. The Waqf has removed hundreds of truckloads of “debris” from the Har HaBayis, which they dumped in the Kidron Valley and other sites around Yerushalayim.
With the help of volunteers, Israeli archeologists are painstakingly sifting through the rubble removed from the Har HaBayis, to look for artifacts. (Thus, there is no halachic concern of ascending onto the Har HaBayis.) One of these volunteers asked me whether one may participate in this work, citing the following potential shaylos:
1. Is there a halachic concern that someone may be using property of the Beis HaMikdash for one’s own benefit, which violates a Torah prohibition called me’ilah.
2. Since we are all tamei, is there concern that one might be contaminating (i.e., making tamei) property or the stones of the Beis HaMikdash?
3. What are we required to do with stones or earth that were originally part of the Beis HaMikdash or the Har HaBayis?
4. The remnants being unearthed include bone fragments, some of them human. This leads to two specific questions: (a) May a kohen work in this project? (b) Is there a halachic concern of mistreating the dead since these human remains will not be buried afterwards, but will be stored and used for scientific research and study?
5. Some artifacts that surface are clearly from what were once idols. Is there a halachic requirement to destroy them? Is it the finder’s responsibility to destroy them, which the archeologists do not permit?