A warning for the next month or so — and a miracle...or two

 12 Adar 2 5782 | י"ב אדר ב' ה"תשפ"ב

 

The first bus I wrote about below was similar in structure to this one from Singapore, with the double doors in the middle. I lost the link...sorry about that!

 Ed: Tomorrow Jews the world over mark Ta'anit Esther (Esther's Fast), the day before Purim. I live in Jerusalem, where we celebrate Shushan Purim, the day after.

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A warning

It came to my attention while finishing up my last post that the Muslim month of Ramadan comes in when Nisan, our upcoming month, comes in. Meaning, we need to prepare now for a really nasty month ahead. Or, if G-d will have abundant mercy, our prayers now — and especially tomorrow —  will prevail and we will be spared something like what we had all over Israel last Iyyar (Islam does not have leap years of any kind, so their years go all the way around our calendar and those of others who adjust their days or, in our case, our months; as you see above, the Jewish month is Adar 2 (or Adar Bet).).

A friend of the family who has a lot of experience, having lived in Morocco for a time, implored me to warn everyone clearly. Since our days start at sunset, Nisan and Ramadan come in on Friday night, 1 April.

Here is some news about it. Click or tap: 

"Palestinians" anticipate more violence | Between Land Day in the Negev and Ramadan in Jerusalem: Efforts to Prevent Security Deterioration

 Here's a snippet:

Israeli Minister Zeev Elkin’s intention to resume planting in the Negev, including in areas where violent clashes took place two months ago, is already receiving attention on the PA side, but the fear of escalation stems from a series of further developments, including the diverted global attention from the PA issue in the wake of the crisis in Ukraine, pressure on the Palestinian Authority to freeze security coordination with Israel, tensions between Fatah and Hamas, and due to Israel’s intention to approve the construction of housing units in Jerusalem.

In eastern Jerusalem, which was at the center of events last May that led to Operation Guardian of the Walls, Arabs are warning against Jews ascending the Temple Mount on Purim and the Passover holiday, in parallel with Ramadan. Sheikh Akram Tsabari, a preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and head of the Supreme Muslim Council, called on Muslims on Sunday to increase their presence in mosques in the east of the city “and to repel the attacks of Jewish worshipers.”

Sheikh Tsabari also called for the prevention of Purim ceremonies on the Temple Mount, and explained that “such comic ceremonies hurt the feelings of Muslims.”

Land Day occurs on 30 March...the day before the new month. It's their day to proclaim their "ownership" of the land of ISRAEL; so, things might get started early.

Because the whole world's attention has been on Covid-19 and the war between Russia and Ukraine, it means that Israelis must pay attention to what is happening right here, right now. No one else in the world has as much at stake on this issue as we do.

Furthermore, the Ukranians who are here because of the war might become disoriented, at the very least, because of events here.

Tonight and tomorrow (the fast begins at sunrise tomorrow) is the most appropriate day to appeal to G-d ahead of time, not to act like a dog that bites the stick that is beating it, but like a Jew who knows his G-d is behind everything.

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A miracle...or two

The day before yesterday, 10 Adar Bet, I had gone to see a friend in a nearby city. On the way home two things happened that were very scary for me and for the others on the buses I was riding on.

The first was on the way to the Giv'at haTahmoshet light rail train station, where the bus had to negotiate a winding road down a large hill, or a small mountain, depending on how you look at it, in the rain. 

The middle double doors somehow opened up while the bus was moving, and people could have fallen out of the bus through them and even gotten run over by other cars. There was one woman who ran to a pole and got a seat just in time to keep herself from falling out. I looked around, and I shudder to think what would have happened if someone had fallen out. Someone screamed towards the driver to close the doors. It took him about a minute to completely close them because they kept flying open...while he was driving the steep downhill curve!!!

I started singing to myself the last part of the Hallel prayer — Please, G-d, save us; please, G-d, forgive us! — knowing that if the driver took his mind off of either driving the curve or shutting the doors, a disaster was waiting to happen. 

THANK G-D THE DISASTER DID NOT HAPPEN.

The second one was another bus, nearing my neighborhood, taking a right hand turn onto its main street...and a little child (I'm still under the impression it was a boy) started to cross the street...Some of us screamed, the driver hit the brakes hard, and stopped just in time. People who weren't seated were thrown about a bit, and got scared, especially the women with baby carriages...with the babies inside.

THANK G-D THE DISASTER DID NOT HAPPEN. 

Neither inside, nor outside, the bus.

Here are some of the things that can happen...and have.

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I'm convinced that G-d, the same One who saved all of us on those buses, is willing to save all of Israel from the impending disaster of Ramadan...if we are willing to give Him His due ahead of time.

Let's not make the same mistake many of us (led by our authorities) made after the Six-Day War. 

What was that? Not giving HQB"H the credit due Him for the miracles that occurred then, and those that have occurred before and since then, as well.

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If you haven't had enough yet, watch this video, thanks to SG: 

Purim's Association to the Geulah

Also: Sign a petition to Say NO to a Nuclear Iran.

Celebrating the Belief in Providence by Rabbi Eli J. Mansour...and more

 light of 11 Adar 2 5782 | לאור יא אדר ב' ה"תשפ"ב

 

Borrowed from a neighbor...here

 

Ed.: This week, we celebrate the reversal of events in the Book of Esther, which we call Purim...and which we pray will occur in our times as in those. May Mashiah be revealed now!

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Shabbat Zachor: Celebrating the Belief in Providence
by Rabbi Eli J. Mansour

 On Shabbat Zachor (the Shabbat preceding Purim), we read a special section in the Torah (Debarim 25:17-19) about the Misva to remember the vicious attack launched by the nation of Amalek against our ancestors in the wilderness. The story of the attack, which appears in the Book of Shemot (17:8-16), is read on the morning of Purim.

Following the war against Amalek, G-d announced to Moshe, "Ki Yad Al Kes Kah, Milhama L’Hashem Ba’Amalek" – "For a hand is raised [on oath] over G-d’s throne, that a war will be waged by G-d against Amalek" (Shemot 17:14). The commentators explain that G-d here is referred to as "Kah" – the letters "Yod" and "Heh" – because His Name is incomplete as long as the nation of Amalek exists. The complete Name, of course, is formed by the four letters "Yod," "Heh," "Vav" and "Heh," but with Amalek in the world, the final two letters – "Vav" and "Heh" – are missing, as it were, from the divine Name.

It has been explained that this teaching is rooted in the verse in Tehillim (96:11), "Yismehu Ha’shamayim Ve’tagel Ha’aretz" – "The heavens shall rejoice, and the earth shall exult," the first letters of which are the letters of the divine Name – "Yod," "Heh," "Vav" and "Heh." This verse expresses the fundamental tenet of providence, that although G-d is in heavens, He is intimately involved in the earth, as He governs, oversees and exerts full control over everything that transpires here in the world. Both the heavens and the earth "rejoice" – because both are under the control of the Almighty. The nation of Amalek battled against this fundamental belief. In the section read on Shabbat Zachor, Amalek is described with the verb "Karecha," which is associated with the word "Mikreh" – which denotes coincidence, or happenstance. Amalek argued that all events are coincidental, unfolding randomly, without any rhyme or reason. They believed in "Yismehu Ha’shamayim" – that G-d is in the heavens, but they denied "Ve’tagel Ha’aretz," that G-d governs the events down here on earth. And thus G-d proclaimed that as long as Amalek exists, His Name consists of only "Yod" and "Heh," representing the words "Yismehu Ha’shamayim," but without "Vav" and "Heh" – the words "Ve’tagel Ha’aretz" – because Amalek denied the belief in G-d’s providence over the events in our world.

Read the rest HERE.

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 Some goings-on in the run-up to our holiday, Purim, where defeat turns to victory...

Zelensky is disappointed by Israel's response | Letter to the editor: search term "not even once" | Nisan this year is their Ramadan..."Palestinians" anticipate more violence | Insights and advice from R' Itamar Schwartz for women on Purim | The Key Question is Why...Israel gets dragged into the middle | Keep your eye on the Covid ball | A Message from [a citizen of] Russia | Biden admin offering $1M for groups delegitimizing Israel | 

Esther Yocheved's Three Questions...a few thoughts

30 Adar Alef 5782 | ל' אדר א' ה''תשפ''ב

 Happy End of the Month | סוף החודש שמח

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With more and more truth coming out about more and more people, places, things and events, wouldn't being able to distinguish real Jewish values from the false ones that have been going around, be part of this all-important pre-redemption process?

I have really taken what I hope is a more precise view of this important question, having heard Esther Pollard a"h's explanation to her husband, Jonathan, just before she went to her place in Olam haBa. It was about questions she used all her life to find out what kind of individual she was dealing with, as appropriate. (Video below, just in case you haven't seen it yet, or just want to review it.)

I wrote down the three questions that Jonathan gave his fellow mourners so that I could put them here and, using them as a guide, make a list of things we should try to accomplish regarding the Land before Mashiah arrives. (All right, so we aren't allowed to rely on miracles...but they do happen all the time! Thank G-d.) 

It seems to me she came up with a very simple test, which others, including me, might have, or should have, come up with before. It might have been one of those tasks that was saved for her to express as needed. A lot of it has to do with the Jewish heart and its connection with fellow Jews, or expressions of the lack thereof, such as when someone is defending the presence and claim of ownership that Arabs might have against us here in Israel. 

We (and especially I!) need to apply them in such a way as to form a closed circle around ourselves — the wall Yehonatan told his audience about in the video below, to sustain purity of spirit and heart, the purity that is expected of real Jews in the face of the worst adversity. 

Jonathan gave a specific example of an event he and Esther went to in New York before they came here, somewhere in the middle of the video. A man who calls himself a rabbi was defending the Arab presence in Israel, and Mrs. Pollard called him out on it, using specific examples.

The line of questioning was as follows:

1. Do you feel the pain of your brothers? Do you really feel it? 

Note: Jonathan mentions that in her thoughts Esther includes our sisters too; but the question is about the Jewish People as a whole.

If you are a Jew and have no skin in the game — not living in Israel — you have no right to criticize Jews in Israel. 

If you live here and still act like you have no skin in the game and want to hand over your people's lives for the sake of political correctness or anything else, in the end it will be all the worse for you.

And no, I'm not asking whether you put your time in the army here, because until now it serves to preserve an Israel that holds nothing special for — or sacred to — the Jewish nation and that does not take into account our myriads of sufferings of many different types, over millennia. A "state for all its citizens" here actually cheats the Jews because our government favors certain non-Jews here. Why would a Jew serving as a spiritual or a governing leader do such a thing to his people? Everyone else has somewhere else to go, except us.

We don't want to be "governed" in this manner. We just want our own sovereign homeland, without enemies living among us whose only goal is to plague us and preferably rid the world of us.

The portion of the list applicable to this question contains at least these action items. There may be more that readers may post in the comments:

1. Putting others' values, whether real or pretend, ahead of our own is disastrous. Let us look around and see what happens when countries have no clear understanding of the reason for their existence. We have a clear mandate from the Holy Torah to be here in the Land of Israel, from which we must draw the courage of our convictions. 

Everyone who has a bible and reads it knows that, too.

People who oppose our Biblical mandate to be in the Holy Land ought to take their bibles out from their homes and burn them in the nearest public square. Let 'em show us their hatred in burning flames! Then let's see what happens to them. 

The people, not the bibles.

2. Letting our government punish our brethren over those who would actually throw us out on our ear if they had the chance...is simply wrong. We must protest this policy every chance we get.

Take the Negev Bedouin, for example, who are allowed to run wild while Jews cringe in fear because our so-called GOVERNMENT rendered itself powerless to stop it...

And the constant "shooting ourselves in the foot" phenomenon. For decades, Israel's foreign policy has been to give in to those in our land who are backed up financially by rich nations and organizations around the world, such as the EU, the UN and the New Israel Fund), legitimizing him and delegitimizing us. 

This also relates to how our government has handled our public relations from our earliest days as a renewed state until now. It is all due to false values, labeled Jewish by people who seek to sway us toward self-destruction. A great summary of this can be found here.

(But the one outstanding exception I am aware of is Daniel Seaman, former director of the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) among other positions. He gave everything he could to defend us through the written and spoken word. Search | Wikipedia | Tablet | A7)

Do we seek to relieve our brothers' pain by acting appropriately against these things, or do we seek to destroy their presence, or allow them to face unnecessary destruction, in our mutual homeland without protest? 

Do we seek to hurt our fellow Jews in Israel by keeping them constantly in danger, constantly fighting issues that would have been solved long ago if they had been dealt with properly, as any other nation would do and not be chastised for their actions???

The loyal, faithful Jew does not seek to destroy our presence here, whether he lives here or not, even despite our government. He (and his Jewish wife — this includes genuine converts to Judaism) seek to support our return to the land to which G-d promised us He would return us, and even return themselves. Which brings us to our next question...

2. Do you feel the pain of the Land of Israel? Do you know that the Land is alive, that it's Eretz haKodesh?" 

The portion of the list applicable to this question contains at least these action items. There may be more that readers may post in the comments:

 1. Realize why the land was as good as empty for many hundreds of years before Jews began coming back en masse. We still have pictures of those days until relatively recently. Mark Twain gave excellent testimony to that face when he was there in 1867.

2. Make the inclusion of lands that were won in the Six Day War and that the world still doesn't consider legitimate (Judea/Yehuda, Samaria/Shomron and other lands as they come to us) as a part of Israel Proper a prime priority. Extend sovereignty, already! We don't need to wait for the president of the USA or any other country to do it for us.

3. Do you feel the fear of our children when they're running to the bomb shelters? And they're told they have 10 seconds?

The portion of the list applicable to this question contains at least this action item. There may be more that readers may post in the comments:

1. We must make Jewish children our top priority. No other country would allow their children to be subjected to the kinds of danger and violence that ours are exposed to on a daily basis. No other country's children associate BALLOONS and KITES with bombs and other violence. No other nation's children must go through sirens and strictly timed reactions on a regular basis...and they're not fire drills.

Not to mention having their parents murdered in front of them, or other atrocious things. 

2. We citizens need to stop considering what we have been going through a normal way of life, especially if we're not going through it directly ourselves (I'm looking at you, government leaders!). 

I don't think that people living near the Gaza border think it's normal for their homes to be shot at all the time; neither should those of us who have the power to change things.

There are plenty of news items and blogs that have more of this information, with links.

These questions can be adapted to any kind of situation our child is confronted with. Another way of demanding an explanation is as Esther said it, putting the onus on us adults: 

"Do you feel the fear for our future, because our children are our future?!"

When it comes to our children, we need to be responsible and demand explanations that these purveyors of un-Jewish values would be uncomfortable giving. People with Jewish mothers, who say 'no' to all three, are not true Jews; they are not loyal to their own. 

(It's like that other test that we hear about a lot: Does a person show mercy and compassion (rahmanut רחמנות), shyness and humility (bayshanut ), and display lovingkindness and sharing from what they have (g'milut hasadim)? These are qualities associated with Jews with true Jewish values.

I got this from HERE.)

 As Esther did, and showed us: If they don't display the signs, or feel the pain of their people from over the centuries of persecution, exile and murder, we must doubt their loyalties and even their lineage, no matter how high their stature or important their title. It's crucial and even consequential for the next war that is coming up. 

My hope is that even those of us who don't feel comfortable asking such questions will be able to stand on our ground better and more accurately. 

After all, we do need to know whether we are confronting a real problem precisely, or falsely accusing someone of being a danger to themself* and others through their values.

And finally, we need to solve the problems that have stood in the way of our redemption for thousands of years. May Mashiah be revealed quickly, with mercy and lovingkindness.

 

*Thanks to R' Pinchas Winston for introducing me and my family to this Canadian term through his writings.