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Some religious Jews campaign against promiscuity in the IDF with the claim it weakens the IDF’s capabilities.

But Jews are the main target of the IDF, including physically!

• The IDF defends our worst enemy, namely the state (its sole purpose).
• The IDF’s decision-making is awful.
• The IDF murders us via Arab proxy (prisoner releases, creating and propping up hostile regimes, granting Jew-haters moral support and legitimacy).
• The IDF fights for politicians’ careers.
• The IDF helps the US empire.
• The IDF kidnaps Jewish youth (not even including forcible conscription).
• IDF suppliers sell weapons to non-Jews.
• The IDF throws us out of our homes.

(I mean not just the IDF proper, but the ‘Defense’ Ministry, etc.)

Gemara Me’illah 17a:

שפעם אחת גזרה המלכות גזרה שלא ישמרו את השבת ושלא ימולו את בניהם ושיבעלו את נדות הלך רבי ראובן בן איסטרובלי וסיפר קומי והלך וישב עמהם אמר להם מי שיש לו אויב יעני או יעשיר אמרו לו יעני אמר להם אם כן לא יעשו מלאכה בשבת כדי שיענו אמרו טבית אמר ליבטל ובטלוה חזר ואמר להם מי שיש לו אויב יכחיש או יבריא אמרו לו יכחיש אמר להם אם כן ימולו בניהם לשמונה ימים ויכחישו אמרו טבית אמר ובטלוה חזר ואמר להם מי שיש לו אויב ירבה או יתמעט אמרו לו יתמעט אם כן לא יבעלו נדות אמרו טבית אמר ובטלוה הכירו בו שהוא יהודי החזירום

Wouldn’t you prefer your predator weaker?!

OK, so they’re Jews, too. I’m not promoting depravity. But I disagree with the pro-IDF rhetoric behind the anti-vice. And we should focus on replacing the IDF, instead.

(Someone said I should read “The Kinder, Gentler Military: How Political Correctness Affects Our Ability to Win Wars” by Stephanie Gutmann. I’ll consider considering it.)

For a longer explanation of the problem with the monopoly IDF, see this (Hebrew).

The media would frequently ask Ron Paul why he was running for president when victory was highly unlikely. Are you in it to become president or “just to spread your ideas”? The gist of his answer was that is a false dichotomy; he was aiming for both. Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut is trying to do the same.

You cannot aim for both using rhetorical compromise, however. Rand Paul and America’s “Libertarian Party” do this all the time, only managing to arouse distrust and loathing in both anarchists and authoritarians.

Question: Whose vocation is politics?

Max Weber answers:

Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say ‘In spite of all!’ has the calling for politics.

Whom does this quote describe? Who never crumbles? Ron Paul. And maybe Feiglin (a little).

When Rafi Farber decided to run, I wrote it sounds like “he’s asking to be electrified (metaphorically?)” – God forbid! Farber is astute, though. He says the same here himself:

The question can be raised, why even attempt anything with Zehut? The answer is for the same reason that I am running on its ticket. Because we have a religious obligation to try, and leave the rest up to God. I’m running for religious reasons, not for any practical reason. I will vote Zehut for religious reasons, not for practical ones. If God wants us to succeed, we will, but not if we give up or don’t try. … When a regime is really threatened, all the meaningless politician talk goes out the window and they start beating you.

Fine. But then no rhetorical compromise, otherwise you aren’t causing any Kiddush Hashem thereby, no matter what! (One may omit less central aspects of the message for the sake of instilling more central aspects, though, just as men do in all communications.) If you don’t clearly announce Whose sake it’s all for, what honor would He get by helping you succeed?!

Rabbi Yitzchak Brand once footnoted this in regards to Feiglin; I suspect his essay was subsequently deleted, as his support for Feiglin weakened with time – so, no link.

“Lost Causes Are the Only Causes Worth Fighting For“

So say it: We believe in Hashem! We are Jews! The land is ours! We oppose democracy! Knesset Members are all the same! And keep going…

And, as Feiglin has shown many times over, steadfast “Zehut” (identity) is also the pragmatic choice.

The problem is, most people cannot be so “suicidal” in so seductively practical-seeming an arena as democratic politics. Far better therefore, for most, to avoid full-time politics. That is why I wrote this post over here. My counsel isn’t “give up” or “don’t try”. I say go for a bully pulpit without a baton. Translation: private influence.

Then, unless you see a burning bush, stay far, far away from the palace!

1. Our About page is non-descriptive, I mean hardly descriptive, even undescriptive (and nondescript, too).
2. “This is not a news site“; we keep it unpredictable. We try to discuss the upcoming Parsha or Holiday.
3. The editor wishes you would all copy him and start your own, competing playgroup. Until then, please send us your articles (especially in English)!
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7. Rafi Farber endorsed us. Yes! For real!
8. I try to schedule the day’s articles for Nine AM.
9. Who is our intended reader? Read this.
10. We don’t discuss the Beis Hamikdash nearly as deeply as I wish.

Rafi Farber of The Jewish Libertarian recommends this humble site of ours.

Really.

An excerpt to prove it:

I feel alone most of the time, notwithstanding my amazing wife and family. But here and there someone pops up who, surprisingly, also gets it, and gets me, mostly.

The webmaster at Hyehudi is one of those guys. See his post on Women at the Wall here. Not what you’d expect from a Haredi guy. I don’t know who he is and he wishes to remain anonymous, understandably so. He’s some sort of Haredi libertarian guy. I can’t make it out completely. There’s a lot I disagree with him about but the disagreements are all inconsequential and academic, since they are restricted entirely to the private sphere of our own thought and not public policy which affects the lives of others.

…

Look at his website and subscribe to his newsletter. It’s well worth it, if only to hear thoughts from someone like me who has stayed closer to mesorah and Torah Shebe’al Peh than I have.

I hope not to disappoint him.