Hava haAharona - The Last Eve - חוה האחרונה

23 July 2024

Respect! Why doesn't Israel receive it?

17 Tammuz 5784 | י"ז תמוז ה'תשפ"ד

May we have an easy and productive fast!

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Click here to watch MK Dan Illouz on X.com speak in English to the international community about a Palestinian state.

I wrote most of this article on 15 Tammuz 5784, 21 July 2024. I believe it will be a day to remember, if the right things are done now.

Lots of people love to blame the current government, wherever they are in the world, for anything that's going wrong. This might be true in most countries, but here in Israel it's not any one particular government. It's the governance system. The same mistakes occur over and over and over, no matter which party or group of parties is in power.

Someone, or many someones, outside our political system — and outside our country — must have been giving, and still be giving today, the same orders to both sides.

Hopefully, as of now, we will begin to see a shift in policy regarding the Jewish people's continued return home to Eretz Yisrael.

We need to get our eyes off of whether Labor (recently changed to the Hebrew equivalent of "The Democrats" and merged with Meretz), or Likud, wins. The whole system is wrong, whether borrowed or imposed from polluted sources, and will never get us anywhere.

Which implies, if not actually states, that our governments have been selling us, the people of Israel, "down the river" the whole time.

That would be traitorous, wouldn't it?

And the results are in. It happened on 19 July:

The declaration on the part of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Judea and Samaria are off limits to the Jews and the State of Israel. (<<< download the PDF from the link)

How did one of the international courts attached to the United Nations suddenly get the message to publicly state, via an advisory opinion, that Judea and Samaria don't belong to the Jews at all?

That's aside from the fact that it's been called "the West Bank" for a long time, and not by its proper and legal name.

Was it pressure from the Arabs, from the United States, from the UN itself? This statement is not binding as law. However, it encourages agencies higher up to try to make it international law.

I say "try to" because there will be repercussions from any attempt to legally take away Jewish land from the Jews; I think that's why Britain, with impunity, unceremoniously lopped off what became Jordan from the Palestinian Mandate, which at that time referred ONLY TO LAND FOR THE JEWS.

We haven't seen the open wrath of the All Mighty One in our favor in a very long time. Maybe now is the time?

It certainly wasn't from a recent study of the roots of the peoples of the Middle East in the Bible, where the answers are clearer and more proof of its truth shows up practically every day. And it wasn't from international law: See the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo Conference of 1920 (download PDF there, if you can). More about the San Remo Conference (search)

Now, to the point...

...is it possible that the governments of Israel, over decades, contributed to the impression that we were so subservient to "international bodies" that they felt they could just come and take away any recognition of Judea and Samaria as part of Israel? How did this signal get to them?

Just perhaps, by our governments punishing and over-punishing Israel's own Jewish citizens just for living in these areas (this may be the only article to sympathize with Amiram Ben Uliel's plight, brought on by our courts accepting his confession under torture, online as I'm writing, from 2022, for example) more than those who live within the "Green Line," and all the ICJ did was put down the first step for higher courts to formalize?

(And this, just in on 17 Tammuz...our Supreme Court accepted an Palestinian Arab land claim near Hevron, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried along with (most of) the mothers of our people. How can we expect world legal bodies to have the respect our nation deserves when our government and legal "representatives" can't be bothered to set the example? I'm shaking my head over this masochistic behavior!)

Back to the international court...

Apparently...The ICJ cannot define "occupied Palestinian territory" — but it tries very hard. And, the EU deplores Israeli democracy. Especially when we disagree with them on whether or not we should let people live among us who want us dead and do their best to make it so.

And back to our official response...

We see that, finally, on 15 Tammuz 5784, 21 July 2024, that our Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, submitted a declaration rejecting the ICJ's ruling on "occupation." Four days prior, the Knesset voted, and established its position against, a Palestinian state.

Good for you! No Israeli leader or influencer, whether politician, jurist, or advisor (much less a blogger), has any mandate to bow, or advocate bowing, to even the most overwhelming international pressure to give away the land most of the Jewish Bible (called the Tana"ch here) refers to!

(We should note here that the responsibilities and decisions of the Knesset have been under attack from other branches of our government for years, especially our judiciary branch. Are we so ignorant of what a real democracy is that we would ignore this issue?)

...and how do we show that we mean it?

I hope the rest of the Israeli government listens up. I believe our upper-level leadership has been part of the problem all along. If they don't take heed, they can't be part of our future.

(By "upper level," I'm referring to those who give orders, even having the temerity to dictate to the prime minister or president, providing that these are of sound mind in the first place. Advising the leader of your country is one thing, dictating to him is something else.)

At least since 1969 if memory serves (sorry, no internet then, thus no accessible link from here), radio shows in the United States and other places were still criticizing Jews for walking around and feeling at home in Judea and Samaria two years after the 6-Day War. Our enemies lost, and until now our government has never learned its lessons from that war, or any of the others where we were saved by "deus ex machina" as they might call it.

Dear readers, you and I know better: God is real, and it is He who really won the war for us in 1967, and many others as well. Even our enemies admitted it then, and get frustrated now when it's obvious to them that God acts in our favor, even when many of us don't follow His ways. But our governments have not only been ungrateful, they actually attributed our victory in 1967, and those afterwards as well, to the greatness of our army!

"Give credit where credit is due" is one of the maxims of common decency, which translates to derekh eretz here.

So, let's not respond to the decrees of the nations, but rely on HQB"H.

I think it is better not to respond to whatever the nations say at all regarding our government's response. Certainly, neither we nor our government should not take out our feelings about their statements on the people of Israel, even if we don't agree on where Israel begins and ends. We have to wonder why, all of a sudden, our government is actually sticking up for the legitimacy of Judea and Samaria due to the direct attack by the ICJ. But the best response is no response at all. We can carry on without letting everyone in the world, including the media, know what we're doing, day to day. Who knows, it might save many of our lives that might otherwise be lost. Loose lips sink ships, after all, as was said during WWII.

Democracy may (or may not) work in other parts of the world, but definitely not here.

A family that is living here right now somewhere in this country holds the distant descendant of King David's unbroken male line, who is the heir to his throne. If he passes away, another will arise from that line; that's how we can say that Mashiah has been available, and could have come to Am Yisrael, in every generation. That's who Mashiah is, and his government will be the only truly legitimate one, recognized by all, here.

May we live to see it, with the love and help of God; let us all acknowledge Him.

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25 June 2024

Do Jews exist as a separate group of human beings? And so what, if we are?

19 Sivan 5784 | י"ט סיון ה'תשפ"ד

Blogger's notes: Inspired by the article Is there a 'Jewish People'? by Alex Grobman, Ph.D. His article can be found HERE. I saw the video first on Tomer Devorah, and found it so fitting that I am posting it here at the end of the article.

Toward the merit of a friend of mine who just passed away a few days ago from this writing, Chaya Hinda bath Avraham Shmuel haCohen v'Doba חיה הינדה בת אברהם שמואל הכהן ודובה. Among many other things, she, along with her husband, was quite connected to Rabbi Sprecher, ztz"l; this is how I met them.

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Summary of points:

The core of the Jewish people is a family, bnei Ya'acov בני יעקב (descendants of Jacob our father, the completer, aided by his four wives, of the source of the Jewish People). The source is your family Bible, provided that it is properly translated as needed for the reader's understanding.
The rest converted to the religion, or are descendants of converts on some level, and they may marry into the family. A lot of them have done so.
The world considers us different, whether our line is completely from the original family, not at all, or anything in between.
Due to lack of understanding and incomplete research, many outsiders consider today's Jews to be a generation of impostors. It would be one thing if they could prove it; but generally they want to take the inheritance of the Land of Israel, as small a portion of it as we have today, away from us. A significant portion also want to rid the world of us, too.
Having an ulterior motive is one reason for refusing to convert a candidate to Judaism (the religion that allows them to marry into the family); it is also a reason to disbelieve a Judenhasser, no matter where they come from, who accuse self-admitting Jews of being impostors without taking the time to prove their statement. To simplify, of claiming that the person in front of them is not a Jew/ess when s/he is.

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I assure you, dear Jew-hater, that, in an age when Jew-hate is farthest away from disappearing, not many people would want to identify as Jews, especially if they know they have no reason to do so. However, I have noticed over the time I have had this blog (since 2015) that when a confirmed, born-and-raised antisemite learns he is a Jew, he tends to turn to us suddenly, with more love than would be expected from someone who grew up hating us with a passionate hatred. The speed with which this occurs is nothing less than stunning.

If I had written this post a few years ago, I would have had an excellent search link to give, and a number of really excellent profiles of such people. This has all been hidden or outright scrubbed, and replaced with stories of Jews who collaborated with the Nazis.

Both sides are true, as far as I can tell. Just because SOME Jews collaborated, doesn't implicate ALL Jews. PLEASE DISCERN THE DIFFERENCE, as you have learned to do with other groups/nations/races. I object to the nations taking our prerogatives away from us, thinking they can do a better job.

Maybe you should take a couple-and-a-half thousand years and be scattered all over the world, losing major portions of your history, self-esteem and language and much more along the way, before you even think about how you might criticize how we've been handling things upon our return to the world stage.

This brings another question: Could envy be involved in this ever-enduring hatred? (Please, don't mix this up with jealousy. I've started working on an article that distinguishes jealousy from envy, which is what most people today mean when they use the word jealousy.)

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And yet another question: Does a world that hates Jews almost without exception deserve to tell us that we have no right to our land? After all,

"...in a debate with British historian Arnold Toynbee, [former Israeli ambassador] Yaacov Herzog asserted that the normal laws of history do not apply in this case, "so long as the world agrees that there is something unique about the Jews in the history of mankind, it cannot deny the right of the Jews to this land." Grobman

I would add by way of clarification: Whether they hate us or love us, or anything in between.

As a people, we are unique regardless; the worldwide Jew-hate at this time is positive proof, even though it doesn't implicate those who live among the haters who feel and live quite the opposite. Those who continue to stand by our side, despite all pressures, were also promised us by HQB"H (God, to the rest of the world).

It's part of the Heavenly sorting process (which others before me have translated from the Hebrew בירור, and transliterated as birur) before the Great Redemption that will be witnessed by all the world.

I'm posting this video with the hope that it will help us with our own birur before that Great Day.

How to END THE EXILE

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20 June 2024

The Shloshim of Rabbi Ephraim Avraham (Sprecher) ben Pesach Moshe and Rivka, ztz"l...

14 Siwan 5784 | י"ד סיון ה'תשפ"ד

Rabbi Sprecher's Shloshim Video

...took place at the OU Center on Keren haYesod Street in Yerushalayim this past Monday 17 June, the 30th day after his passing on Shabbat Emor, hosted by his son Yoni Sprecher.

The hall where he once taught was packed with people from all over Israel. Relatives and friends woke up before 7am to watch from the United States on Zoom, from where this video was taken at 2pm Israel time.

Watch, and be blessed.

As his son Yoni said, others envied R' Sprecher because one can find his videos in many places. Some of them are:

YouTube
Rabbi Sprecher.com | Articles
Blupela.net
Yiboneh
The Jewish Press (Yes, it's our Rabbi Sprecher. No, I had no idea that he had an "American" middle name or initial. You'll see if/when you go there.)
And, of course, right here at Hava haAharona.

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31 May 2024

Ants defend themselves...and do construction, too.

23 Iyyar 5784 | כ"ג אייר ה'תשפד

Jewish construction workers! Who would have thought? I'm crying with happiness.

It's in Hebrew, but the visuals convey the message clearly to speakers of other languages.
From the Kan כאן YouTube channel. כאן means "here."

H/T to Women in Green (HEBREW)

I learned a lesson today (Tuesday, 21 May 2024, 13 Iyyar 5784) when my computer refused to reboot after a Torah class. I was offline for a couple of hours and, instead of getting upset about it because my at-home fix-it-guy wasn't home, I went and did something I had been wanting to do for months: A small gardening task on the retaining wall leading to the entrance to the apartment building where I live.

Last year around this time someone planted a mint bush there, and it flourished all summer as I (and possibly others) watered it. Weeds started growing next to it during the winter that looked like very large dandelions, but with pricks up and down their stems. I still don't know what they really are, even after searching for them online.

When the first signs of spring arrived this year, I noticed that tiny ants had started moving into the spots around these plants, but I was too busy to deal with it then.

It turned out that there were two colonies of different sized ants of the smaller varieties, even smaller than I'm used to.

Just so you understand, I'm not the appointed gardener here. But as my fix-it-guy says, no tenant here takes responsibility, so he often does, with different things. I took responsibility today with the retaining wall.

When I started working on the weeding, ants came pouring out. Fortunately, they didn't all jump on me at once, but many did, and I had to blow them off. Literally. I didn't want to kill them; I was aiming at the weeds, after all. But what I was doing was affecting their lives very greatly.

I found one ant had planted itself in my left arm, like a bee would. It was then that I realized that ants have stingers, they're just not as prominent as those of other bugs. But they are more like bees and wasps than I had realized, just not as poisonous per animal. More about ants HERE.

After dealing with that ant, and having taken out the weeds and throwing them over the wall, I watered what remained. Ants came pouring out again; I moved so they wouldn't jump on me. After a while I noticed that there weren't so many of them hanging around.

I think they "moved house." At least, I hope they did, for their own sake.

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My lesson learned had as much to do with my people, Israel, if not more, as with the ants. It occurred to me that the people of this earth think that the Jews are like ants, who will move if their nest is uprooted or otherwise threatened.

I hate to tell you this, but with the Jews this has a limit. Just because you have seen Jews move about over the last 2,000 years, you think this will go on until there are no more Jews, even though the Bible and the Quran both declare Israel the Land of the Jews. Not just the land we're sitting on now, but much more than that. We are not ants, despite what you think of us because of our historically diminished population size. You will find out that we have a God Who has temporarily punished us because of our misbehavior, but Who loves us nonetheless.

If ants have a right to defend themselves and build their homes, all the more so do the Jews.

It may be that the death of the president of Iran and seven other high officials is the beginning of the end for our 'brother' enemies in the Middle East.

Unless you repent of your wicked ways!

We're really not ants, you know. This is our disguise! 😜

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After doing my job outside, when I came back inside, my computer started working again. Baruch haShem!

I only stumbled on the particularly relevant video above on the day I posted.

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P.S. Don't forget to pray for Arvin Netanel ben Sonia Tziona, as well as all the Jewish hostages all over the world, in addition to the ones in Gaza.

Shabbat shalom umevorach ! שבת שלום ומבורך

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19 May 2024

Justice for Arvin Netanel ben Ziona!

11 Iyyar 5784 | יא באייר ה'תשפ"ד
26th Day of the Omer Count

NOTE: This post is dedicated to my rabbi, R' Ephraim Avraham Sprecher, zz"l (Rabbi was niftar yesterday, Shabbat Emor.)

Arvin Netanel Ghahremani ben Sonia Tziyona. From Matzav.com, obviously 😉

*UPDATES* BELOW

Perhaps you have heard of the imminent execution of a young man, Arvin Ghahremani, for the death of Amri Shokri. Both are from Iran.

Certainly, this needs context, and it is hard to get, but here is what we have as of this writing:

The deed took place in Iran two years ago. Arvin is a Jew, while Amri was a Muslim. For anyone who knows about religious laws in Iran, which all of the countries except Israel have in common (I don't think there are Christian countries here anymore; there used to be), we can derive the following point: Arvin is a dhimmi, and thus has far fewer rights than Amri, the one with the ruling religion.

Arvin is a Torah scholar, while we don't know what Amri was.

The actual facts on the ground don't seem to matter to the Iranians, but in absolute terms they do, especially as complete redemption approaches. As far as I can determine, in chronological order:

1. Arvin lent Amri money more than two years ago, when he was 18 years old.

2. At some point, Arvin asked for his money back.

3. Amri didn't want to pay Arvin back, so he brought a knife with him and threatened Arvin with it. According to at least one report, 7 men attacked him. (see below)

4. Arvin defended himself from this imminent threat and Amri ended up dead, from his own weapon being used on him.

5. Amri's parents won't accept the blood money that is every Iranian's right to offer; Iranian Jews from all over, and as far away as Los Angeles, offered them money. THEY WANT THE JEW DEAD, NO MATTER WHAT. A number of ways to pay this money have been DECLINED.

I am not a legal expert of any kind, but from a derekh eretz point of view I see some problems:

Muslim law dictates that dhimmis not possess weaponry or defend themselves in any way from attack by someone of the dominant religion.

Amri was killed with a knife, apparently his own large knife.

If Muslims believe in their law, they have to admit that Arvin didn't possess a knife, thus no intention to kill Amri. Arvin only wanted his money back, that he'd lent to Amri.

The fact that Amri was killed by his own weapon is his own fault because he brought it with him.

But Muslim law declares the Muslim's superiority over the dhimmi Jew, thereby nullifying Amri's fault "legally."

While I was writing this post, this breaking news item came across: The execution was held off for another month. By the time you read this, there will be more articles on this.

While one could take this to be torture for Arvin and his family, I see a silver lining: The authorities don't really believe that Arvin is guilty of the charges against him. If they believe in their own law, they know that Arvin didn't have a weapon, much less bring one to the fight 2 years ago.

Therefore, I believe that Arvin has been, and still is, a hostage of the Iranian government for the past 2 years.

If they really believe in God, they will ultimately let him go free, or be forced to do so by a Higher Authority.

Speaking of which, I was praying this morning and asked H' to act accordingly, and He apparently took the next step. This post is to advocate the complete freedom and justice for Arvin Netanel, not just mercy and softened hearts. It's time to let him go.

And not only him, but many others...unfortunately, Iran is having a execution spree right now...

Please continue to pray for, and say tehillim for, Arvin Netanel ben Ziona. Several versions of his Hebrew name are here in case you want to pray for him by any of them.

Some ways to pray in joint tehillim readings (all the same person):

Arvin Netanel ben Sonia Tziona | Arvin Netanel ben Sonia | Say Psalm 13 13 times (it's short) and let the Iranian/Persian Jewish community of LA know you did by signing into your Google account! The mekubal there wants 1,000 people! |

Other sources of news on this subject:

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) | NY Post gets my vote for the most detailed presented facts on the leadup to the sentence, so far, although this might not be the latest on the sentence itself. Attacked by 7 men?!?! And Amri was 40 years old. Not a boy or even a young man! | Jerusalem Post the first article I found with details | i24 also mentions the 7 attackers | Yeshiva World News took at least 1 part of their post from the NY Post | Times of Israel |

One article said he was released, but I can't find any confirmation or details. Please feel free to write me at my blog address if you find anything that gives details on his release, and how you want to be mentioned, or not at all, if you prefer.

Many thanks in advance!

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UPDATE after Shabbat 23 Sivan 5784: with your Tehillim, Hashem has decided to extend this for another 40 days. They received a 40 day extension this morning. Pls DO NOT add anything to this when passing the news.

UPDATE: From a WhatsApp news group: The Mekubal from LA wants people to pray Ps. 51, and while reading verse 12 there, say the names of Amri's parents: Iman Shukri (father) and Hadiyeh Nazari Mir Aghaei (mother), that they should agree to free Arvin Netanel ben Sonia.

Psalm 13, 13 times, are still being said and desired.

UPDATE: According to The Jerusalem Post, time is of the essence, despite the "delay." They can decide to execute him AT ANY MOMENT. The regime (not the people) enjoy executions!!! Maybe the Mekubal would consider praying for the Iranian government to have softer hearts too? Would that work?

I like what H' did to Raisi and all who were with him...the government didn't take that warning, so maybe He would do the world a favor and sink it down into the ground, like Korach and his followers in the Bible?

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