26 Kislev 5786 | כ'ו כסלו ה'תשפ"ו
Hanukkah 5786 | חניכה ה'תשפ"ו
2nd candle | נר ב
This post was inspired by an article from Vision Magazine, "They didn't teach me Hanukah" by Danit Grady. Like her, I didn't learn the real story of Hanukkah until later in life. For me, it was MUCH later.
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People might be forgiven for thinking that from the end of the Holocaust until the Six-Day War, almost 20 years, was the process of liberation of the Jewish people from the notion that we were weak and helpless against our enemies. We had gained and declared a state, after all, within the boundaries of our ancestral homeland in the Middle East.
The June 1967 victory was so great, the world stood up and took notice. But, unfortunately, it's hard to describe the relationship between the Israeli government and its citizens as having any kind of unity. The army and the government were taking all the credit for the victory, but the rest of us — as well as many Arabs who witnessed this with their own eyes — saw the miraculous happenings. Unlike the Holocaust, which ended almost 20 years prior, God was not "hidden" from the Israeli Jews that fateful June.
Our leadership, however, was oblivious. They have taken credit for every victory then and ever since. We've been paying for it even during the Simchat Torah/October 7th massacre and followup war.
I was a pre-teen at the time of the "6-Day War", and it was the first time in my life that I could stand up straight and look my peers in the eye. It didn't last very long, unfortunately.
We cannot allow them to get away with whatever shenanigans they've been up to, then and ever since. The liberation we were expecting at that time didn't come. It still hasn't.
Rather than accepting and ensuring that Judaism would flourish in the Land, our leadership suppressed and mocked anything particularly Jewish, to the point of allowing Arab Muslims to be in our government, even though these were enemies of the so-called Jewish leadership that invited them in and the laws of the country, and especially of our religion and relationship with God.
Certain leaders made a point of abdicating leadership, for example the handing over of the Temple Mount to the Arabs there and not allowing Jews the same rights. (Ideally, no one should be up there at all until King David's scion and heir to the throne is revealed (and who would also be Mashiah). But no one was ready to treat Jews equally with Arabs. Either both on, or both off.)
The article linked to above, if you haven't read it already, is about the struggle of the Hebrew people to retain our religion and the culture that grew out of it. You might want to say that nowadays it's about the Palestinians...but unfortunately for us, and also for you, dear reader, is that today the moniker Palestinian is applied to the wrong people. Our government screwed up, quite frankly, when then-prime minister Golda Meir decided to throw that name to the dogs, so to speak. They picked it up and ran with it, and we don't even bat an eyelash when we hear it used by our enemies as their identity.
EVERY REFERENCE TO PALESTINIANS UNTIL THEN WAS TO THE JEWS. The Palestine Post (and many other names of things I can't think of right now) was JEWISH. My maternal grandmother was a Palestinian Jew (not many American Jews can say they have a relative who was a Palestinian Jew before the declaration of the state; but I can, and in her merit I returned here, after asking Heavenly Permission.).
But I didn't only come here to rehash a bit of history. I came here to insist that we demand liberation from the necessity to follow the dictates of the nations so that we can recover ourselves from our own sources.
The best way to do that is to SAY BYE-BYE TO THE NATIONS and come home to the Land we were given by God millennia ago. Even Israel Behind the News is writing about this HERE, saying: "Jews are no longer welcome. The days of comfort for Jews in the west are over!"
While things were relatively good in lands across the seas and over dry land, we might have needed to ask permission to come home, as I wrote about doing in the link three paragraphs above. But now HQB"H (God) seems to be forcing us to reconsider and even run home as soon as possible!
Despite everything I heard about our governance system while I was still in chutz la'aretz, I have not regretted a single moment since I made aliyah. I have found that it's more important to choose a city, town or village — wherever you want to live — where you can make friends with your neighbors, if you don't already have friends there, and trust them.
It may even be that HaShem will guide you there, in times like these.
We may never have a completely joyful occasion again until we're all gathered together and Mashiah makes himself known.
We need to try to have a happy Hanukkah as best as we possibly can, through our tears.
...and maybe we should call what should have been the Jewish Liberation movement back in the 1960s/5720s the "goodness liberation" movement...and have it now, in the 2020s/5780s. What do you think?
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P.S. The US First Amendment to the Constitution limiting certain forms of expression from freedom of speech is exemplified by the phrase "shouting 'fire!' in a crowded theater." Why? See here for more.
The reversal there and in Europe is more evident by the day.
Whatever fire there is, is between us and HaShem!
I cannot speak for other countries or peoples.
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More reading:
Israel Behind the News: After the murders of Jews on the first day of Chanukah in Australia | Tomer Devorah: Updated list of Sydney dead and injured for prayer | R' Shmuley Boteach, on A7: The disappeared assets of gassed Jews | Elder of Ziyon: The "Israel is settler colonialist" proponents are almost a cult | R' Dr. Hillel Goldberg on A7: This year, it's time for a minimalist Hanukkah |
Videos/combination written-sound-video:
Israel Unwired: Chilling: 2 days before the massacre in Australia, this interview took place | Israel Unwired article/JNS video: The former skinhead neo-Nazi who hated Jews until he watched Seinfeld | Afghani man visits Jerusalem for the first time |
