ALIYAH: A Story of Religious Rags to Riches

Something From Nothing

On June 27, 2001, a single mother and her son landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel for a two-week vacation. The plan was that she would go to a seminary and he would go to day camp. Neither of them knew a soul in Israel, nor did they know any Hebrew and next to nothing about Judaism.

Six years later, to the date, nearly 200 people, mostly Israeli and mostly religious, celebrated the boy’s Bar Mitzvah at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens. This is a story of spiritual rags to riches, of a good woman who has found the right path and has learned to apply all her goodness and giving to a Torah life. And while this type of thing is not uncommon in Jerusalem, it is still wonderful to encounter further evidence of G-d’s creating something from nothing.

As the mother and son painstakingly learned the aleph-bet that first summer and said their first words of thanks to the Almighty, we, the people around them, adopted them. When the mother decided not to go back to America, we enveloped them into our hearts and into our lives.

While our children all played together, on Shabbat or during the week, we answered both routine halachic questions as well as metaphysical ones about existence, Midrash and the Land of Israel. The women helped the mother with Kashrut; the men helped the boy in shul. Seminary joined hands with ulpan, camp evolved into yeshiva for the boy – their choice of neighborhood became permanent as the family put down ever-lengthening roots.

As the years passed, we noticed that both mother and son were giving at least as much as they had been receiving. In the beginning, the mother and son were invited out every Shabbat. Now she hosts Shabbat meals, lectures, concerts, and other gatherings in their home. Everyone in their building knows that their apartment is open to all: Come borrow (books, anything), see (the rabbit, the giant terrace) learn (about lots of things) or lean (on her strong shoulder).

Everyone knows there is enough gas in her car for every possible contingency, whether it’s a ride to a doctor, the store or just to get a breath of fresh air. Once we drove to Ma’aleh Adumim, a lovely garden city on the edge of the Judean desert; she had never been there before. Let’s go! So we went – just like that.

She has helped people in need, having learned how to both give and receive when she first arrived in Israel and to Judaism. Her regular volunteer work at a soup kitchen, in a poor haredi neighborhood, just barely skims the surface of a life of giving and doing for others. This is a woman who has learned enough Hebrew to help English speakers (who have lived here longer than she has) with many tasks they would otherwise not be able to complete. This is a woman who has driven around Jerusalem picking up and delivering prepared food for sick people. The list is very long.

In a valley behind the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University, the Botanical Gardens include twisting paths between trees and bushes, their Latin and Hebrew names posted on signs beside them. Hints of herbs tickle the senses. At the bottom is a lake with swans and ducks skimming the water around tall bulrushes. A breeze plays on the trees, and the band plays quiet Klezmer music. Couples arrive, wish Mazal Tov, and take a romantic walk around the lake. The children play on monkey bars at the far end, run around the lake and answer their cell phones when their parents can no longer make eye contact with them.

This venue is perfect for a family that loves to go hiking and camping during school vacations. Needless to say, they have almost always taken friends with them, whether up to the Golan Heights, down to Eilat, and everywhere else in Israel.

We daven Minchah just before a blazing sunset, and then the festivities begin. Music and lively dancing follow the speeches. There is confetti in the air.

To all the guests this is much more than a Bar Mitzvah. It is as much a tribute to the boy’s mother and their spiritual victories as it is to her son who has grown right before our eyes into a true Torah Jew. The mother has thanked us all for coming. As she speaks, we whisper around the table that it is we who should be thanking her.

From The Jewish Press, here.

CLAIM: ‘I Don’t Need God to Tell Me What’s Right and Wrong!’

If you need a law to be good, you must be wicked

I remember an argument along the following lines:

“I don’t need a god to tell me what’s right and wrong.”

“Just how immoral must you [the ethical theist] be? So if God didn’t command you, you would just go out doing all these bad things? Have you no self-control? You have to have a god control you? How pathetic!”

The God-rejector, sitting atop that typical throne of moral superiority, letting the ethical theist know how much more better he or she is. You could just bask in the glory and splendour of his righteousness.

But as the book of Proverbs warns us, you should not respond to a fool according to his foolishness so that you don’t end up like him. Instead, if you feel like it, answer him so that he doesn’t seem wise (Mishlei [Proverbs] 26:4-5).

Now the way I deal with will seem like I’m beating a dead horse, having spoken about the abyss which is atheism in similar ways, but, hey, … what else are dead horses for, except to be beaten?

Don’t answer that!

Anyway …

I choose not to simply respond to such criticisms but to look at what they rest upon, their presuppositions. If there is a good foundation for an argument or complaint, then it’s worth time and investigation. But if there is no such foundation, then it has as much sense as the babblings of a rabid babboon.

The issue here is right and wrong, good and bad. The God-rejector thinks it irrational, silly, stupid for a person to base their standard of right and wrong, moral good and moral evil, on what “a god” commands or says. Before the ethical theist even takes that challenge on board, it is necessary to know the standard of the God-rejector uses to measure morality.

So in a world of no volitional universal creator, no Judge above all – let’s pretend that’s possible – what is morality and who decides and how? That’s the crux of the issue. What is morally right? No, what is the basis of such an idea? The outpouring of the chemical reactions from a deluded, unintelligently-evolved (in other words, stupidly made), slightly removed from simian animal? The brain of just another dude? Without that Objective Standard, just what right does anyone have to deciding right and wrong for anybody? Yes, we’re back to meaningless subjectivity.

A rock is eroded by the weather so that it crumbles and falls on another rock. Just something bouncing off something else. The rock smashed a bug, or crushes a bird. Just something bouncing off something else. The wind blows and then it dies down. So what? A woman smashes a hammer through the skull of a child, just something going through something else, life comes and goes, and it always goes. So what? The child would have died anyway sooner or later, just as everything comes and goes. The struggle for survival in an indifferent universe when the fate is just death, one way or another.

What basis does a person have for morality without an objective standard? Don’t go pointing to some manmade law, because all you would have done is shifted the argument from one god controlling and dictating right and wrong to another god (the people who made the laws).

In order for the atheistic argument to have any meaning, there must be a standard for “right” or else we’re talking about nothing more than individual tastes, which is no more a basis for morality than the colour of the sky.

The point is that, without any introspection required on the part of the ethical theist, the question is meaningless. The arguments become as follows:

“I don’t need a god to tell me about things that have no basis in my worldview..”

But since they have no basis there, what the hell are you talking about?

“Just how different must you be? So if God didn’t command you, you would just go out doing all these different things that I may not like, but it’s all up to anyone anyway? Have you no self-control, even though there’s no objective reason to have any? You have to have a god tell you to do something different to my personal tastes? How pathetic!”

The argumentation itself becomes pathetic. Why is the atheist complaining about something different when differences are everywhere? What is wrong with being control when “wrong” is up to the brain producing it? It’s all just empty nonsense. The foolishness of the fool needs to answer, just a deconstruction. The house had no foundation so it wasn’t worth anything.

It goes back to the point that there is little of substance to argue about with such people until they accept the Basis. Until then, it’s just a person shouting at the wind.

From Seven Laws Blog UK, here.

האמונה במדינה נפוצה יותר מהאמונה באל

אנחנו שוכחים מי זו “המדינה”, זו שאמורה למלא את התפקיד שאנחנו מייעדים לה. המדינה היא יעקב ליצמן וגבי אשכנזי, אריה דרעי ומשה בר סימן טוב; גם השכן ממול מהעירייה וגם האידיוטית מלמטה, זו שעובדת בבנק ישראל.

(הכתבה פורסמה במדור דעות של “גלובס“.)

האדם מייחל מאז ומקדם לדמות של מנהיג-על שיודע הכול, בעל יכולת ניהול על-אנושית וכישרון ביצועי מופתי. מנהיג-על גם צריך להיות חף מהעדפות אישיות ופוליטיות. מלאך.

לכן אימץ האדם אלוהים או אלים. אבל גם המאמינים יודעים שאלוהים לא תמיד עוזר ונסתרות דרכי הבורא. אז מה עושה האדם המודרני? מאמץ אלוהים חדש או נוסף – המדינה.

אולי הגזמנו באמונה העיוורת?

המאמין מדמיין יכולות אינסופיות של אלוהים, “האזרח המתקדם” מדמיין את יכולותיה של “המדינה”. ערגה למישהו שייתן מענה אופטימלי לכל בעיה. המדינה צריכה להיות הבעלים והמנהלת של מערכות הבריאות והחינוך, המדינה תפתור את בעיית העוני, תמנע אבטלה, תציל את הבורסה מקריסה, תדאג לדירה, תשקם אותנו אחרי שריפה או שיטפון, תספק אשראי לעסקים, דמי אבטלה לכולם, פיצוי לכל עסק. תנהל את הכלכלה, תמנע משבר כלכלי, וכמובן… תילחם בקורונה.

האמונה בכוחה של המדינה נפוצה מהאמונה באלוהים. גם המאמינים באל עליון מאמינים ביכולות המדינה. הקביעה אינה סותרת את אלף טענות שיש לנו כלפי המדינה, כולן מתומצתות במשפט “המדינה לא ממלאת את תפקידה”.

המורה מספרת להורים: “לילד יש פוטנציאל אבל הוא אינו עושה די”. הציבור מאמין שהמדינה מסוגלת, אבל טועה ואינה משקיעה מספיק: אין החלטות מסודרות, חסר ניהול נכון, אין סדרי עדיפויות, אין מינויים נכונים, חסרה תכנית אסטרטגית, אין חשיבה לטווח הרחוק, ואיפה שיקולי עלות/תועלת.

הטענות מוכרות, היו תמיד ויתקיימו לעד. כולנו בטוחים שאפשר לתקן את “הפגמים הקטנים” ואז המדינה תצליח למלא את התפקיד שאנחנו מייעדים. אמונה יציבה, בלתי מעורערת – בכוחה של המדינה. צריך רק למנות את האנשים הנכונים.

איפה “האנשים הנכונים”?

אנחנו שוכחים מי זו “המדינה”? המדינה היא ליצמן וגבי אשכנזי, דרעי ומשה סימן טוב; גם השכן ממול מהעירייה וגם האידיוטית מלמטה, זו שעובדת בבנק ישראל. ועוד מיליון פקידים, עסקנים ופוליטיקאים. הם וקודמיהם בכל דור. אתם רציניים באמונתכם? אלוהים שבשמיים – אין לו פנים, אבל את אנשי “המדינה” אנחנו מכירים. עם היד על הלב… אתם מצפים מכל אלה שינהלו את המשימות? ואפילו יצליחו?

האמונה בכוחה של המדינה יוצרת ציפיות, בייחוד במצב של מצוקת רבים (קורונה, רקטות, מלחמה, אסון טבע), לחץ ציבורי שמאיים על עתידו של הפוליטיקאי. לפוליטיקאי אין פתרון כי לרוב לא קיים פתרון ממשלתי לבעיה, אבל הוא חייב לעשות “משהו”. הרי לא ייתכן שאין פתרון לסכסוך במזרח התיכון, לא ייתכן שאין פתרון מידי למצוקה הכלכלית. הציבור שמאמין בכוחה של המדינה – דורש פתרון כאן ועכשיו – אז הפוליטיקאי עושה “משהו”. מקורו של “המשהו” בתחושות בטן, בעצות של “מומחה” (או מומחה שכנגד), או שמעתיקים “משהו” שעושים פוליטיקאים במדינה אחרת שגם הם עשו אצלם “משהו”.

מעל לראשו של כל פוליטיקאי בעולם מרחפת חרב הבחירות. לכן אי אפשר לצפות שידבר אמת ויצהיר: “לא קיים מושג ‘ניהול נכון’ של מגפת הקורונה, אנחנו מנחשים ומנסים”. אין קיום לפוליטיקאי שיצהיר “מדינה לא מסוגלת לקצר משבר כלכלי. ההתערבות שלנו רק תאריך את המשבר לשנים”.

אז למה פוליטיקאי צריך לשקר?

לפעמים הוא לא יודע שהוא משקר, “מומחים” מייעצים לו. גם הוא, כמו כולם, מאמין בכוחה של המדינה. לרוב הוא יודע שהחלטותיו מבוססות על ניחושים ותחושות בטן. אבל הסיבה הנפוצה לשקר היא “הבאג הדמוקרטי” – אם הוא לא יעשה “משהו” אז ראש האופוזיציה ישכנע את הציבור ש”המשהו” שלו טוב יותר.

יציאה מהירה (יחסית) ממשבר כלכלי כרוכה בניתוח מכאיב ובסיכון פוליטי. הפתרון אינו בעשייה ממשלתית, אלא בקיצוץ דרסטי מכאיב של מעורבות המדינה בכלכלה וברגולציה. ככל שנגיע מהר יותר לתחתית – 9 מיליון ישראלים יוזמים וחכמים יוציאו אותנו מהבוץ מהר יותר, לא “המדינה”.

ממה מתחילים? הסכמה על קיומם של 5 משרדי ממשלה בלבד, 5 שרים. ובמקביל, קיצוץ דרמטי בשכר, בפנסיה ובסמכויות הסקטור הציבורי להתערב בחיינו – צעד שיאפשר קיצוץ מיסים וביטול המכס. וזה רק הצעד הראשון.

מוטי היינריך

מאתר קו ישר, כאן.

Rules For Thee, Not For Me

Pelosi Confused By Strange Word ‘Laws’ These Peasants Keep Using

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Amid a controversy involving getting her hair done and possibly being set up like some kind of patsy, Nancy Pelosi has been hearing a weird word some of the lower classes keep using: “laws.”

“Huh? Laws? What are those?” Pelosi asked, confused after hearing rumors that people were upset she was breaking them.

“So these ‘laws’ are like rules or guidelines the peasants are supposed to follow?” asked a confused Pelosi to one of her many servants. The servant explained that laws are a set of agreed-upon rules that everyone abides by.

“That sounds awful! Why don’t they just stop being peasants? I wouldn’t want to live like that. I’m glad we in the politician class don’t have any of these strange — what did you call them again? Loos? Lawns?”

“It’s ‘laws,’ your majesty,” the servant explained as she opened another pint of ice cream for the Speaker. Unfortunately, she then timidly informed Pelosi that even the Speaker of the House was supposed to follow the laws. Pelosi immediately pulled a nearby lever and sent her plummeting through a trapdoor into the dungeon.

From The Babylon Bee, here.

Persecuted Minorities Should Emulate This Man

This teacher’s story of compassion has a twist that will leave you touched

The exact details of what happened to Laurence C. Jones one day in 1917, are uncertain.

But several reports tell that on a certain day, a lynch mob of angry young white men chased the African American school teacher, surrounded him, and threw a noose around his neck.

Jones was an influential and compassionate educator.

He had devoted his entire life to helping the poorest of the poor, the most underprivileged children, wherever he could find them.

In Mississippi, Jones had started a school in a sheep shed to teach poor kids in a county with an 80% illiteracy rate. When he learned about their lack of education, he had taken it upon himself to change that. And he did.

He was also black, during a time when African Americans were lynched for minor offenses.

His “offense” was supposedly inciting a riot, because he was overheard at a speech earlier using words that were misconstrued as calls to take violent action, which they were not.

So on that day, he stood surrounded by this mob, his life in their hands.

And Jones began telling them about his school. Perhaps how needy these kids were, and how he stepped in to change that.

He told them how he has been trying to raise money to pay for school supplies.

He told them that they misunderstood him when he was giving that speech, and he was not trying to incite any kind of riot.

It’s said that he even cracked a couple jokes to lighten the mood.

It worked. All of it. They angry crowd had a change of heart.

And then something truly miraculous happened.

The lynch mob, so moved by Jones’ words, decides not only to let him go…

but to raise money for his school themselves!

 

“No man can force me to stoop low enough to hate him”.

That’s a quote from Jones.

Jones devoted his entire life to helping others learn, grow, and understand.

By turning an angry mob into donors to his cause, he showed the selfless power of compassion, love, and turning against hate, which would have been difficult, faced with a mob after your life because of who you are.

Sources:

Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad
Hall of Fame: Laurence C. Jones
Crisis, Volumes 6 – 7
Des Moines Register
Wikipedia

From History Hustle, here.