Light of 7 Menachem Av 5786 | אור ז' מנחם אב התשפ"ו
Here's a video I wanted to post for ever so long, but I lost the connection to it. Avi Abelow kindly provided me a link to this Pulse of Israel special:
It's a beautiful example of how a community that was hit by great tragedy was able to be revived by a Torah wedding and a new beit knesset. It took place in Nahal Oz, one of the communities that was viciously attacked on October Seventh, 2023/Simchat Torah 5784, and since this video was taken, has a synagogue as well as a brand new Torah.
I could not find anything on the Internet about the uniqueness of a Torah wedding, so I am taking on the work of describing it: Carrying a freshly written Torah on a wagon or something similar in a parade with a lot of people going with it through the streets of the neighborhood of the village, town or city where it will be read out loud, and the calligrapher who painstakingly hand-wrote the Torah (called a sofer) even helping a number of neighbors fill in, for a small donation each, one of the final letters of it before it is read. It symbolizes the reenactment of the wedding of the Torah to the Jewish People.
Without even thinking about it, I found one thing about which the Internet may have no knowledge. Until today.
With God's help, may all who watch it be blessed abundantly.
This presentation was not videotaped on Pesach itself! Knowledgeable Hebrew-speaking Jews will find a lot of replacements for the usual words in the script.
Thanks to my teacher Noemi, who is a Sefaradiah and speaks at least 3 and possibly more languages fluently.
Sorry, no English subtitles. But the video itself is well-enough produced, and the speech (in my opinion) enough on the slow side, that viewers who celebrate Pesach (Passover), but don't speak Hebrew ordinarily, should be able to follow along, and some of the tunes are even familiar to Ashkenazic Jews.
20 Tishrei/Tashri 5786 | כ' תשרי התשפ"ו 6th of the 7 days of Succoth
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Online pics have recently become more aggressively sales-oriented...so no more with articles unless I take them myself. Sorry about that.
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Most of us choose sovereignty, from what I've been reading and hearing...so why hasn't HaShem let us have it? He turns the hearts of the leaders...or are they too stubborn to listen?
Well, how much have we learned in the last two years, the aftermath of the October Seventh Massacre so far?
Will we ever have peace without our Biblically-mandated homeland(s) that include Yehuda, Shomron and Aza?
Will we ever have peace without total victory over ALL the enemy organizations among the nations, whether Xian or Muslim?
Will we ever have peace with the current system, which includes a military leadership that often seems to favor the other side's victory, even in public?
And do the nations, especially the USA, understand yet that whoever divides Eretz Yisrael is in BIG, BIG, BIG trouble? Apparently NOT! (See the SEARCH for lists of Biblical references, not only Jewish, but also Xian ones — see explanation below.*)
Did we learn yet that every single Jew who lives in Eretz Yisrael needs to consider the Kingdom of God to be our proper governance system — and let go of the idea that it's equivalent to Iranian (or any other kind of) Islam???
Especially, that our current governance does not allow for a Jewish victory over our enemies, but rather war after war after war, ad nauseam.
The one thing I think (you don't have to believe what I think, but you do have to think about your own reality, and your understanding of our blood enemy) is that Islam is both very much like Judaism, and radically the opposite as well.
It has the same rules, but they are followed very differently. Anything we would consider a sin, they feel comfortable doing, as long as it is justified as "for Alla". Stealing, lying, murder and much more are all included, even though they have courts — all against, and opposite, the Ten Commandments.
A funny thing: If I were to translate the last sentence into Hebrew, the word NEGED נגד means both "against" and "opposite" and would certainly be included.
Furthermore, things they do, they accuse us of doing...stealing land that belongs to the Jews is at the top of the list, necessitating the war of genocide against the Israeli Jews that they've been perpetuating, with the help and encouragement of the rest of the world, ever since we started returning home as a nation.
And somehow, I think they "won't be able to find all the dead bodies" — liars that they are. I just pray that all the living ones are still alive when they're returned to us, and that the ones that are not, will be found quickly and delivered whole.
If we don't claim sovereignty over our lands and act upon it, the gentiles are doing so on their own behalf!
Happy Succoth and a good and sweet year to all my people around the world as well as Israel! And may the culmination of our troubles begins now.
*I tried to get sources that speak of dividing the Land of Israel, like this term: "God says specifically not to divide Israel - Jewish bible sources only" — and the search engine still came up with Xian sources along with the Jewish sources, even though they don't actually quote or refer to them. At least they admit that the Bible says in many places that they will be judged for dividing up our Land for their purposes.
So, if you need to read something that lists all the references to HASHEM's command NOT TO DIVIDE MY LAND, you may safely ignore the Xian sources and read only the Jewish ones within the linked pages.
It seems I have no choice in this matter, if my goal is to get us to the place where we can identify quickly where God forbids dividing or eliminating Israel.
Recently I wrote about the origins of Mashiach HERE, which the Xians don't refer to in their writings, as far as I can tell.
הרס בחמש נקודות התיישבות ביו"ש מאז שעות הבוקר - חיילי צה"ל נשלחו לביצוע המשימה: "מסע נקמה חסר מעצורים
(Destruction
in five settlement points in Judea and Samaria since morning - IDF soldiers were sent to carry out the mission: "An unbridled campaign of revenge")
** this occurred yesterday, Monday, 30 June 2025 **
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Blogger's note: This is the first time I'm using a video that isn't YouTube. It works, and is very short. Heavy on the Blogger system, though. Not for you, dear reader, but for me, the blogger. From what I can tell, you don't find material like this on YouTube. (Although, see below near the end of the post.)
This post could be called "IDF, who are you??? part 2." The Parashat Korach confrontation is what I'm calling what happened on this past Erev Shabbat near Binyamin, Samaria. The video above is a short selection about the response from the army yesterday, Monday, 30 June/4 Tammuz. They destroyed a number of communities in Samaria yesterday morning, according to the Hebrew I received from a friend. With the help of Google Translate, Grok and an additional friend or two, I hope a reasonable translation was made.
Somehow I think there was some miscommunication accusing the youth from the hilltop they were defending from Arabs...a jeep drove up near them, that turned out to be the battalion commander who apparently threatened to shoot them all dead and managed to shoot one, who is still in the hospital under intensive care, thankfully not dead, according to this early report, with an update at the end (H/T: Tomer Devorah.) -HDG
UPDATES BELOW!
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HEBREW -- עברית
English follows Hebrew
כוחות משטרה ומנהל אזרחי פשטו היום (שני) על גבעת מקנה אברהם בגוש עציון, החריבו את בתי המקום ודיר העיזים, והחרימו חומרי בנייה נוספים.
במקביל פשטו הכוחות על נקודת התיישבות נוספת הסמוכה לישוב מיצד והחריבו גם שם את המבנים, לצד החרמת ציוד. במהלך ההרס צחק אחד מעובדי הקבלן הערבים שהביא המנהל, ואמר בזלזול לתושבים "למה אני מגיע לכאן כל פעם? כי אני אוהב להרוס ליהודים"
זמן קצר לאחר מכן, כשהתושבים פונו מהשטח וכוחות המנהל האזרחי ופועלים הקבלן נשארו לבדם בגבעה, פרצה לפתע שריפה במקום שמשתוללת עד לרגעים אלו. בשעה זו תושבים וכוחות כיבוי נאבקים בלהבות במטרה להשיג שליטה על האש
בתוך כך, ביצעו כוחות צה"ל ומשטרה הרס נוסף בנקודת התיישבות ליד בת עין, לצד 2 פינויים בגזרת בנימין - בגבעה בהר חצור בה התרחש ירי המג"ד בשבת האחרונה, ובנקודת התיישבות נוספת בואדי חרמייה ששומרת על מבתרי כביש 60
בגבעת מקנה אברהם תקפו בחריפות את מסע ההרס שמתרחש בשעות האחרונות: "בניסיון נפשע לגבות את ירי המג"ד לעבר נערים יהודים בשבת, נכנסה המערכת כולה לסחרור ויצאה כעת למסע נקמה חסר מעצורים בהתיישבות כדי להסיט ממנה את הביקורת על התרת דם המתיישבים ולחפות על שקריה"
"גבעת מקנה אברהם שומרת בגופה על השמורה ההסכמית מפני השתלטות עויינת של הרש"פ באמצעות רעיית צאן וחקלאות, וכמו יתר הגבעות מהווה המחסום היחיד בפני תוכנית המדינה הפלסטינית. אנו קוראים מכאן לשרים כ"ץ וסמוטריץ' הממונים על המנהל האזרחי: עצרו מיד את הפגיעה בחלוצי ההתיישבות!", הוסיפו בגבעה
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Police
and Civil Administration forces raided Givat Mikneh Avraham in Gush Etzion
today (Monday), destroying the local houses and the goat pen, and confiscating
additional construction materials.
At the
same time, the forces raided another settlement point near the settlement of
Mitsad and also destroyed the buildings there, along with confiscating
equipment. During the demolition, one of the Arab contractor workers brought by
the administrator laughed and said disdainfully to the residents, "Why do
I come here every time? Because I like to destroy Jews."
Shortly
thereafter, when the residents were evacuated from the area and Civil
Administration forces and contractor workers were left alone on the hill, a
fire suddenly broke out in the place that is raging to this day. At this time,
residents and fire brigades are battling the flames in an attempt to gain
control of the fire.
Meanwhile,
IDF forces and police carried out additional destruction at a settlement point
near Bat Ayin, along with two evacuations in the Binyamin sector — on a hill on
Mount Hazor where the battalion's shooting took place last Saturday, and at
another settlement point in Wadi Haramiyya that guards the dismemberment of
Highway 60.
In Givat Mikneh
Avraham, they sharply attacked the campaign of destruction that has been taking
place in recent hours: "In a criminal attempt to justify the firing of the
battalion at Jewish teenagers on Shabbat, the entire system has gone into a
spiral and has now embarked on an unbridled campaign of revenge against the
settlement in order to deflect criticism from it for allowing the blood of the
settlers and to cover up its lies."
"GivatMikneh Avraham guards the agreed
reserve with its body against hostile takeover by the PA through sheep grazing
and agriculture, and like the other hills, it constitutes the only barrier to
the Palestinian state plan. We call from here to Ministers Katz and Smotrich,
who are in charge of the Civil Administration: Immediately stop the harm to the
pioneers of the settlement!" they added from the hill.
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My Hebrew-speaking friend tells me that the hill was named after Avraham Avinu (Abraham, our Forefather) out of gratefulness to him.
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I am wrong after all, and I'm happy to find: There is YouTube material on this topic! This is short, but longer than the video above. Here is more from a search on YT on Judea and Samaria in general. A lot of it is actually positive!
UPDATE:Finally, today (2 July 2025), we hear from Honenu — a law firm that takes donations because their usual clients aren't even middle class, yet they get the best representation. Here is Honenu's summary of the situation many have been trying to make sense of for days now, with photos and video clips.
Please pray for Assif Hallel ben Efrat, the 14-year-old youth who was shot.
a beautiful song...may the hostages in Aza be freed from the Gazan prison!
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This is about the incident in a place in a small Shomron place called Binyamin, that took place on EREV SHABBAT KORACH 5785: This past Friday night at this writing.
A teenage civilian was shot in the shoulder in the chest (you can see how the different versions of the story go); a live bullet was found in his ribs — according to the hospital where he was taken for treatment — and the rest of his companions were threatened by the battalion commander (the IDF officer) in the Shomron. A summary of details, with links to full stories, will follow.
The father of one of the civilians (they're known as "hilltop youth" in the territory they live in) wrote this article, published on Israel National News. This is not the youth who was shot with live ammunition, not a rubber bullet.
Attorney Shimshilashvili revealed that contrary to IDF spokesperson
claims that only sponge-tipped bullets were used, Hadassah Hospital
issued an official statement confirming that a live bullet was
discovered in the teen’s body. “The police understood that questioning a
minor in such a condition was not feasible — and I commend them for
that,” he added.
Naturally, I have questions and observations from what I've read so far...
Could this be in any way a modern-day version of Korah's argument with Moshe Rabbenu? Is Moshe any more deserving of running the people than Korah, his cousin?
Could the IDF be considered hero or criminal? Schizophrenic, perhaps? Could our soldiers be heroes in Gaza, and at the same time criminals in Yo"sh (Judea and Samaria, known locally as Yehuda and Shomron)?
Did an IDF battalion commander threaten to KILL the group of "hilltop youth" in the Shomron? The father of one of them has seen the videos and says they support the civilians' statements.
When this article calls IDF out to have committed criminal activity, it is not against Arabs, but against their fellow Jews. A stranger looking at this situation would think we'd be clearer on this since "OCTOBER SEVENTH." The people are, but our armed forces seem to be selective in their assessments and not to understand why the people would hold that their main job is to protect the Jewish population. Remember that the world presumes both Gaza and Yo"sh to be Arab territory and not Jewish. I say again, that those who believe that should throw out or burn their holy bibles and qurans! Not ours, not mine, but their very own. They clearly testify otherwise.
Many religious Jews believe that the IDF is the only part of the government system that has the capacity for good as well as evil; they call it klipa Noga (In Hebrew, Noga is Venus, the planet with the brightness of a star.).
The rest of the system has become a promoter of evil, just like the rest of the world that openly hates Israel and Jews, and is only in place until Mashiah is revealed. This shows itself particularly with regard to territory that should be part of Israel unequivocally, but has not been enacted at least in the last thirty-five (35) years — since the 6-Day War is more like it, 58 years, to be exact. Especially since Aharon Barak, the former Chief Justice, brought the current corrupt practices to the Israeli justice system.
The main thing is that the mission of the Jewish People is clarified further, provided that the title question is asked and answered.
I'm still waiting for Honenu to post. I'm working on a followup to this post that a friend is providing me.
...is that today, the day we were alerted that Iran is attacking us, is FRIDAY THE 13TH.
Not only that, today's date, June 13, is numerically written as 6/13 (at least in the US).
Remind anyone of anything?
For many of the nations of the world, Friday the 13th is an inauspicious day. An unlucky day. (Other numbers are said to take on this role, for example some of the lands of the Far East have a different number. But, today I'm focusing on 13.)
For Jews, however, especially appreciated by those who speak Hebrew and are aware of gematria, 13 is a particularly auspicious day. Very positive words in Hebrew add up to 13:
Love — ahava — אהבה
One — echad — אחד
God (the unpronounced name) is double-13, or 26. יהוה
And yet another layer: 613 is the number of mitzvoth in the Torah. Whatever we can take on today, we should do now. Shabbat is upon us, for a start, even if we have to keep it in our shelters.
IRAN, YOU MADE A BIG MISTAKE IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE WORLD.
YOU ARE ATTACKING GOD as well as the JEWS.
LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU.
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Shabbat shalom umevorach to all the Jews of the world, and a great weekend to all the people who love God enough to love His people too.
*** *Thanks to a neighbor in my neighborhood for the heads-up about the 6 in 613. Another neighbor advises that the alternate way to write the date, 13/6, is also auspicious; it refers to the Hebrew words ביד חזקה (b'yad hazakah, with a strong hand...).
***UPDATE***
24/6/2025/28 Sivan 5785: The peace declared today lacks, at least the following:
Civilians were killed on 24 June (4 according to Israel HaYom, Jerusalem Post) in Beersheva while sleeping in their beds. We hadn't even buried them yet, nor found those buried under the rubble, whether in Beersheva whether dead or alive, just before the ceasefire. The point here is that, even though it was before the ceasefire was to start, THE VICTIMS WERE CIVILIANS. Only one of those killed in Beersheva was a soldier. The rest were CIVILIANS, in every sense of the word; to target them is a war crime!
WHERE ARE OUR HOSTAGES??? ARE THEY HOME YET???President Trump, did you forget that HAMAS is a proxy of IRAN??? Did you forget that "October Seventh," still ongoing, is the responsibility of IRAN??? Considering that we are expected to have and maintain a full peace, don't you think this is an important thing to have resolved? If the US experienced anything like we Israelis did, would you expect a mediator to neglect the issue of your people trapped behind enemy lines?
DON'T FORGET BUSHEHR (see Bushehr phase 2 here). This is the one nuclear site that currently exists (that we know of) in Iran and is being prepared for use as I type. It seems to be closer to Israel than the other sites were, from what I could tell. Two more are coming, thanks to RUSSIA. Let's not forget them, either, and note where they are on the map when they are shown.
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We must not forget to put our trust ONLY IN GOD, and only give HIM credit for our victories, whenever and however they come. For the above reasons and more, I believe we're still not done with the Iranian shadow, and possibly other shadows, over us, the Jewish people.
This video from some time ago gives all of us a clue on how to understand how to treat our enemies. Dr. Anjuli Pandavar, ex-Muslim and retired college professor, said, at that time, this was "a great start" on Israel's part. We could do more. Much more.
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It's not Zionism, at least according to the plain definition, the obvious application being to, and about, Zion, which is synonymous with Jerusalem. See HERE for more on that. It's STATISM, as applied to all the other countries of the earth; in this case, to the Jewish state.
I wonder, is it just my wild-and-crazy imagination, or is "Zionism," according to our governance system, actually meant to invite disgrace upon our Holy Land, and especially its capital?
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My post from back in February 2025 suggested that we think about the Kingdom that is the nation of Israel's native governance. I can hear the laughter now, from far, far away and long, long ago...
...because we haven't had any resemblance to a real Jewish Kingdom for a couple thousand years; and the one we had back then was corrupt, and therefore disgraceful. In the 21st century of the 'common era' we find ourselves in, we might have a clue if we lived in the British Isles, or one of the other nations, small or large, that has any type of monarchy (a list of the various kinds can be found HERE). Only a clue, however, because we'd actually have to read our Tana"ch (the Jewish canonized scriptures that don't include the Xian ones or any others) and find the many passages that describe it (or use an artificially 'intelligent' program to find them, which I do not prefer.).
But since the way it is presented to us in the current State of Israel, a so-called democracy since 1948 CE, we would find it hard to imagine what living under the properly Jewish monarchy would be like. After all, democracy, at least as I as a former American understand it and heard it recently, essentially means each of us is our own royalty. This means, if going by results means anything, that evil royalty versus good royalty could end up making the whole country subject to evil leadership, and therefore, become evil. The American founding fathers warned the world about this in their day.
Apparently, Israelis are not nearly as free as we think we are. Consider Rabbi Michoel Green's new series on Zionism (the series intro begins HERE). No one who lives in a democracy — or any other form of government — really enjoys freedom, according to Rabbi Green. See part 1: Conspiracy of Modern Statism and part 2: The Lie of Zionism. The rest, you can read on your own, either by free or paid subscription. There are many parts to it.).
I wrote the first draft of this post during the day the Bibas family was brought back in coffins: Thursday, 20 February 2025 (22 Shevat 5785). I didn't cry because I had gone into cold anger. The way the whole presentation of the coffins was done — I didn't watch the videos or other media that displayed it, but I heard about it — makes me wonder whether our enemy (Hamas is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak; the whole Muslim world is our enemy; I mention dhimmitude in my writings sometimes, but the Muslims were past that many years ago, and want us all dead...) thinks that the most manipulable people in our country are the leftist supporters of the system we live under; they would be correct. But the fact that their counterparts in the government are the de facto rulers here makes us all the more vulnerable.
At least one person, writing on Arutz Sheva, recognizes this and is able to write about it clearly. I would say, watch for more like that.
Israelis remember when, just before this war began, there were protests in parts of the country against judicial reform. So, it seems, not only did they give our enemies the impression that we were vulnerable, ripe for the picking; but they also find us vulnerable enough that when the hostages' families protest openly, few oppose them. (One of these groups doesn't protest against our government, however. The Tikvah Hostages' Families Forum (ENG) addresses the correct parties, Ham-ass and the rest of the enemy entities. See a good example HERE of why I wish the mainstream media here would focus on them, rather than the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which focuses the blame on Israel and thus weakens us.)
I hear all the groups' pleas and their cry; however, they aren't the only ones suffering. How about the fallen soldiers whose families are mourning, the injured, whose families are with them in their pain and loss of limbs? How about the people who are driven from their homes from the periphery?
And how about the baby who was born from his shot-to-death mother as SHE WAS IN LABOR. He died two weeks later. How many of these have we not heard about? Search for Ravid Haim ben Tze'ela.
I would like to be with all of that. However, being openly vulnerable in a time like this is just making things harder for the whole country, making it harder to win.
Perhaps this latest offensive, Gideon's Chariots, will be our last chance? I hope not...Gideon (Gid'on) wasn't allowed to have chariots in his own time; now, we have at least their equivalent, be"H.
Just in case some readers still think that the government oppresses the judicial system here, I would like to disabuse you of that notion: For the past 30 years it has been the other way around. When was the last time you read or heard in any news source about the Knesset passing any laws without having the Israeli Supreme Court (in those days, translated the High Court of Justice) annul them?
In Israel, it seems as though the governance system
(including all branches, but especially the unelected portion of them) calls itself a democracy, but acts like a dictatorship that favors a
certain group over all the others. (Ironically, it was mostly people from this very group that was targeted on "OCTOBER SEVENTH." Fortunately, some of the hostages, that we know of, got the message and are passing it on to others.)
What is referred to
as "the government" consists of those who are elected — the legislative and executive branches, while the judiciary, which appoints its own replacements, is its own branch.
Furthermore, it appears that the elected branches have no power over this one whatsoever, making it impossible to stop the judiciary from overreach. Even coming up with a way to stop this overreach can be annulled, as we just saw. As Jonathan S. Tobin (JNS) summed up in this article (emphasis mine):
Israel’s legal problems stem from a judicial revolution that began in
the last 30 years under the aegis of former Supreme Court President
Aharon Barak. He arrogated to the judiciary almost unlimited powers to
overturn virtually any measure undertaken by the country’s government.
Rather than defending a stable system of checks and balances, Barak’s
judicial revolution created a system in which there is no check on the
court, giving its permanent liberal majority the ability to override
governmental decisions...
Chaos followed as an anti-Netanyahu “resistance” took to the streets to
prevent any change. Though it was presented to the world as an effort to
save democracy, the truth was just the opposite. The goal of the
demonstrators was to prevent democratically elected governments with
which they disagreed from being able to truly rule.
This includes passing laws that would strengthen the stability of the citizenry and the Land itself. Only now, when even the army and the judiciary find themselves within easy reach of our enemies, are the elected branches able to reach out for parts of our land that anyone with a Tana"ch, Bible or Quran in their hand can verify is ours to begin with.
It would seem that the best way to ensure that law gets enforced is...to enforce it. But since the people running "the system" don't like what our law is meant to be, we-the-people aren't allowed to decide what to enforce and what not to enforce.
I sympathize with anyone who really can't imagine what living in the Biblical vision of The Kingdom would be like. I have been working with myself for a long time to even accept the idea, since I have been neither a subject nor a citizen of even a modern kingdom at all. However, I think it's pretty obvious by now that to keep things as they are, or even try to improve them while staying in "demockracy" mode, will leave us far from solving our multitude of problems. Participating in elections that end up with us running in place, almost constantly under fire again and again and again ad nauseam, is not a good thing.
An improperly-run kingdom, as occurred after King Solomon's time, isn't the answer either. That's why we need to make sure it's the real Biblical one, with Biblically-mandated leadership and proper supervision to insure proper fulfillment.
Maybe that's why the post was delayed until the weekend before Shavuot, when we once again have the opportunity to understand what our nation is all about?
Here's an interesting article that just might give us a good clue about whether or not our current system is serious about solving problems...or are they more interested in political manipulation?
Shabbat shalom; and may our upcoming Shavuot bring us understanding and merit!
