A Test for Yirat Shamayim (The Fear of Heaven)

I heard the following story from a well known rabbi here in Jerusalem recently:

When I was a young man and still a bachelor, I met a girl that I was really enthusiastic about. I was seriously considering marrying her. She was a religious girl, but a certain doubt was preventing me from popping the question: How do I know if she is truly God fearing?

I decided to consult my master and teacher, Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah HaKohen Kook zt"l. After presenting my question, he told me, "See what her attitude is regarding Torah scholars. This will give you a good indication as to whether she is truly a God fearing person."

Armed with this piece of advice I met this girl once again. I asked her, "What do you think of Rabbi X?"

"He's senile", she answered.

"And what about Rabbi Y?" I continued.

"Rabbi Y? Such, a primitive person!"

Needless to say that this was the last time that we went out.

So there you have it! A good way to differentiate between one who is "religious" and one who truly fears God is to check how he/she relates to Torah scholars.

Name The Rabbis

Do you know who these Rabbis are? They were recently caught on the Cosmic camera. Guess your best!



Update: No guesses? I'm disappointed! From left to right: Rabbi David Cohen, Rabbi Yisrael Ganz, Rabbi Azriel Orbach

Our Daughters Are Given Over To Another People

Here's a great poster, apparently created by those who were responsible for this one. Click on it to enlarge:



Update:

Here is my translation of most of the poster. Additions for the sake of style and understanding are included in square brackets:

With the assistance of Heaven

Our Daughters Are Given Over To Another Nation

A Revelation of the Opinion of Torah

The foundation of the subsistence of the nation of Israel is dependent upon the differentiation of Israel from the gentiles - and in particular the prevention of assimilation and intermarriage, Heaven forbid. Any relationship between a Jewess and a gentile man or a Jewish man and a gentile woman - whether it is willing or coerced - is a most serious blow to that Jew or Jewess and the entire Jewish nation. And it constitutes a desecration of holiness and is a betrayal of God that has chosen us (Maimonides, Laws of Forbidden Relations).

In a fit situation, when the nation of Israel has proper leadership according to the Torah, and when "the Israel's hand is strong" in our Holy Land (Laws of Idol Worship ch. 10), the leadership acts, first and foremost, to guard the holiness of Israel and "to be separated from the impurity of the nations of the land" ( Ezra 6:21), and the daughters of Israel can walk without the fear of dangerous contact with gentiles.

To our dismay, the present government in the Holy Land does not act for the purpose of Israel's holiness. On the contrary, it strives for "equal rights" for Jews and gentiles. And by this very definition it is interested in the intermingling of Israel and the Nations.

When there is no leadership that deals in practice with these problems - a situation is created where people feel abandoned to danger, and in a natural way they get up to defend themselves and their environs.

In the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, as in many other places, in the past few years there is a phenomenon of Arabs that wander about in the streets and shopping centers, and they harass the daughters of Israel with impunity. Two weeks ago, young Jewish men that could not stand this disgrace arose, and acted resolutely against the Arabs. A number of the young men were arrested, and now the Police requests to lengthen their imprisonment until the end of [the judicial] process.

WE CALL UPON THE PUBLIC TO SUPPORT THE PRISONERS AND THEIR FAMILIES WITH ALL THAT IS NEEDED.

Of course the fundamental, deep-rooted repair will only be the establishment of PROPER JEWISH LEADERSHIP, like Ezra the scribe at his time that dealt with the purification of the pedigree of the nation of Israel, with the separation from the gentiles that were in the land and their removal from the land in order to fulfill the Divine precepts:"Do not give them encampment...Do not marry them.(Deuteronomy 7:2-3).

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg
Rabbi Yaakov Yosef
Rabbi Yitzchak Shapira
Rabbi Daniel Dov Berl Stavsky
Rabbi Yaakov Shimon
Rabbi Ido Alba
Rabbi Yigal Shendorfi
Rabbi Yosi Peli

We Need To Be Faithful To The Torah

This week's Besheva magazine is devoted mainly to commemerating the second anniversary of the destruction of the Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria and the expulsion of their residents. I was particularly struck by what the legendary doctor of Gush Katif, Dr. Sodi Namir, had to say.

לד"ר סודי מצידו יש ביקורת נוקבת על הציבור הדתי לאומי, שלוקה לדבריו באי קבלת מרות של הרבנים הגדולים: "אצל החרדים גדלות בתורה זה הדבר הבלעדי והקובע, ולא יקום מאן דהוא ויצפצף נגדו. אצלנו כל אחד תופס מיקרופון, רשאי להביע את כל מה שיש לו. כשאנו נראים כך, התוצאות הן בהתאם". בחירתו של מנהיג חילוני לראשות מועצת יש"ע, היא לדעתו סימפטום נוסף לחולי בציבור הדתי: "אנחנו ציבור שהתורה רק מפריעה לו במובנים מסוימים. לוקחים את המדינה כערך בפני עצמו ומכופפים לזה הכול. מגיעים למצב שיו"ר יש"ע המתחדשת הוא אדם בלי כיפה וזה לא מפריע לאף אחד. אנחנו מעמידים בראשנו אנשים שלא חיים לפי מערכת ערכים של תורה, והרי ראינו לאיזה ערכים מושחתים אפשר להגיע בלי תורה".

A rough translation:

Dr. Sodi Namir has a piercing criticism of the national-religious public, which according to him is afflicted with a lack of acceptance of the authority of the great rabbis. "By the ultra-Orthodox greatness in Torah is the only thing that counts, and nobody will rise up and 'chirp' against it. By us, anyone who grabs a microphone and is allowed to express what he feels. When we appear like this, the results are in accord."

The election of a secular leader as the head of the Yesha Council, is according to his opinion another sympton of illness in the national-religious public: "We are a public that the Torah bothers in certain ways. We take the state as a value unto itself and we bend everything according to it. We have arrived at a situation where the head of the Renewed Yesha Council is a man without a yarmulke and this doesn't bother anyone. We are putting at our head people that do not live according to the Torah value system, and we have seen what corrupt values one can arrive at without Torah."

Is anyone in the national religious public listening?

A Tale Of Two Rabbis

See if you can find the differences. (To make this easier I emphasized the lines in question.)

Rabbi Gil Student:

Separate seating does not empower women. It doesn't have to weaken them either, if the community is sufficiently responsible. Israeli society is definitely not sufficiently responsible, including (or especially) the Charedi community. I don't claim that women are routinely beaten or humiliated on buses, but anyone who has been in Israel for more than 25 seconds recognizes that politeness... I can't continue this sentence because it is too painful. But you know what I mean.

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein:

After two millennia, we returned to the Land. Like Yaakov, one of the first steps we took was to establish a place for Torah. And how successful that step was! From the ashes of the Holocaust, we created a Torah revolution in the length and breadth of the Land, creating an entire subculture around the central pillar of the primacy of Torah. Tens of thousands of people live lives in which Torah study is put on its proper pedestal. The gem of Torah is restored to its luster. An explosion in Torah publication produces many mediocre works – but also works that will be appreciated for generations. America is a poor also-ran compared with the productivity of Israeli Torah. Thousands of families live with a deep, penetrating, unstinting faith in Hashem and His Torah. We send our children to Israel to breath in the atmosphere they created, beyond the natural kedushah (holiness) of the Land itself. We visit ourselves, to remind ourselves of how many non-Torah values have been foisted upon us by our tarrying in exile too long.

Does this remind you of something?