A Cri de Coeur for the Russian Army to Return to Its Moral Roots
by Rabbi Shalom C. Spira
by Rabbi Shalom C. Spira
I wonder because his latest (new but posthumously published) article, ends plainly:
Tzitzit, with their thread of blue, remind us of heaven, and that is what we most need if we are consistently to act in accordance with the better angels of our nature.
No added jawing about how we no longer have this blue thread, etc., etc.
P.S., I see BlueFringes.com answers our question in the positive, but I cannot access the page. UPDATE: It’s here.
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…