HAS EVERYONE GONE MAD?

The public debate in Eretz Yisroel used to revolve around the release of Arab terrorists and whether this was a proper way to save the lives of IDF soldiers. However, this is no longer the issue. The question now is: What is the connection between the peace talks and releasing terrorists? It should be the opposite – if we make peace, all the murderers should be in prison…

Translated by Michoel Leib Dobry

Consider for a moment the following scenario: A murderer forces his way into a settlement and manages to kill and injure several children and elderly people. He roams around with a loaded weapon in his hand, and all the local residents know that the first person to encounter him will also be the target for his next hail of bullets. A platoon of soldiers arrives to subdue, disarm, and manacle the killer, but at the last minute, the prime minister suddenly makes an urgent telephone call and orders the attacker’s immediate release for the sake of peace. What would happen to any national leader who acted in such a fashion?

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. The prime minister has just released twenty-six killers with actual Jewish blood on their hands and dozens more involved in wanton acts of murder – all in order to renew the “peace talks.” Facts clearly prove that most released terrorists return to their previous violent activities, but such facts cannot be allowed to confuse the prime minister. He is determined to advance the current round of negotiations, regardless of the cost. He freed unrepentant murderers, who will now return to the terror cells they left just a few years ago and resume their prior vocation. Someone who hacks an eighty year-old man to death with an ax does not suddenly become a better person in jail. These are animals on two legs, some of whom never completed a full period of incarceration. Yet, that doesn’t seem to bother Mr. Netanyahu.

It’s interesting to note that the government has apparently forgotten how all construction throughout Yerushalayim, Yehuda, and Shomron had been frozen during the last term. This had been done for the sole purpose of encouraging the Arabs to return to the negotiating table, but, of course, they weren’t convinced. In Yerushalayim’s Ramot neighborhood, it had been forbidden to enlarge a back porch, but even that didn’t satisfy the terrorist leaders. They never considered laying down their arms and abandoning the path of aggression.

The public debate in Eretz Yisroel used to revolve around the release of Arab terrorists and whether this was a proper way to save the lives of IDF soldiers. However, this is no longer the issue. The question now is: What is the connection between the peace talks and releasing terrorists? It should be the opposite – if we make peace, all the murderers should be in prison…

WHAT REALLY WAS THE DECISIVE ISSUE IN THE RABBINATE ELECTIONS?

Last week, after the tumult from the recent campaign for the chief rabbinate in Eretz Yisroel appeared to have died down, the newly elected chief rabbanim, Rabbis David Lau and Yitzchak Yosef settled in to their offices. While their desks were piled with numerous issues demanding immediate attention, the main subject at hand is the issue of conversions. This subject stood at the forefront of the election campaign, as each of the prospective candidates presented his viewpoint on the matter.

The handling of this issue underscores the real problem caused by the misuse of the law on “Who is a Jew.” This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of non-Jews entering Eretz Yisroel, who now wish to “convert” simply to acquire the official documents classifying them as Jews. The Israeli public suddenly realizes that there are countless Gentiles living in their midst who immigrated to the Jewish state in accordance with the Law of Return.

The conversion issue is far more than just a question of the separation of religion and state. This is a matter dealing with the future of the Jewish People. As long as the state of Israel continues to register Gentiles as Jews, who then assimilate into Israeli society, this causes immeasurable harm to the coming generations of Am Yisroel. By the power invested in neo-Reform rabbis, thousands of non-Jews are registered each year as members of the Jewish People without requiring their acceptance of the yoke of Torah and mitzvos, thereby rendering their conversions null and void.

Last week, when the newly elected Ashkenazic chief rabbi, Rabbi David Lau, announced that he would consult with rabbinical judge Rabbi Avraham Sherman of Yerushalayim on all conversion matters, his opponents charged that Rabbi Sherman had previously nullified conversions made by religious Zionist rabbis. They neglected to emphasize that these “converts” did not accept the yoke of Torah and mitzvos, and consequently, the entire claim is baseless since these were not valid conversions to begin with. However, the Torah is irrelevant to someone who first defines Judaism in Israeli terms, and only afterwards according to the traditions from Sinai.

To the president of Israel, for example, the matter is quite clear. “They are so Israeli that I call upon the rabbanim to recognize their conversions,” Mr. Shimon Peres said last year during the debate over the “quickie” conversions in the Israel Defense Forces. But it’s not just Mr. Peres. There are many people who simply don’t understand the difference between a Jew and an Israeli. They’ve been swept up by the fervent secular-religious debate prevailing in Eretz Yisroel today, which deems “Israelis” to be some holy entity. It has reached the point that they genuinely believe that you can determine whether someone is eligible to enter the covenant of the Jewish People according to how Israeli the person is. Prior to last winter’s Knesset election, one of the religious party leaders said that these Gentiles “are prepared to do a whole list of things in order to become Jewish,” perplexed as to why the rabbanim refuse to issue them their prized conversion certificate.

The harsh fact is that most people converting today via the standard procedure authorized by the chief rabbinate cannot be considered as halachically kosher Jews. When the ministry for religious affairs initiated an Internet campaign, inviting hundreds of thousands of Gentiles to conversion clinics, it was impossible to know whether the person was actually converting out of a longing for G-d or a longing for new immigrant benefits from the absorption ministry. In recent years, evidence has clearly shown the tremendous harm caused by the rabbinate’s erosive conversion policies over the last three decades, especially since the arrival of the waves of immigrants from behind the Iron Curtain.

The very nature of this campaign is a clear contradiction of the whole concept of conversion to Judaism. In contrast to other religions, Judaism does not cultivate new members through missionary tactics. Anyone who wants to become Jewish has to prove that his motivation is sincere, bereft of any selfish personal interests. At the present time, a well-oiled machine is in operation for the purpose of “converting” the hundreds of thousands of Gentiles living here, with no need to mandate the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos. The standard conversion process includes a study of Ruth and Naomi, along with a few other pleasant stories from the Tanach, spending Shabbos at the homes of Torah observant families, and developing a familiarity with the magical world of Yiddishkait. At the conclusion of the course, graduates receive a “Jewish” certificate, as if it were a high school equivalency diploma. Thus, it should come as no surprise that ultra-Orthodox Jewry has been refusing to validate conversions by the chief rabbinate for years.

Yet, all these reforms are not enough for those plagued with a perpetual inferiority complex, as they seek to breach all walls of traditional Judaism. Instead of demanding that the chief rabbis put an end to this travesty and set proper standards for the conversion process, they want the courses to be made shorter. They fail to understand why “converts” must first be required to study Judaism for a whole three months…

WHY MUST THEY MAKE SUCH A FUSS OVER SETTLEMENT CONSTRUCTION?

This didn’t happen often during the previous parliamentary term, but now even someone like Finance Minister Yair Lapid makes some correct statements every once in a while. One such statement was made recently in connection with building in Yerushalayim and the Shomron, when Lapid claimed that publicizing the construction of apartments there merely angers the Americans and needlessly harms our relations with them. Last week, the ministry of housing declared that it was making 1,170 housing units in Yerushalayim and the main settlement blocs available for sale on the public market. This announcement was met with accusations by the political right-wing that the housing minister, Uri Ariel, was merely trying to con the settlers and buy their silence with construction projects in the liberated territories, instead of building the thousands of homes he had promised to the voters. But there was another claim: The construction itself poses no problem whatsoever; it was the publicity surrounding the construction project that was irritating the Americans and creating friction between Washington and Yerushalayim.

In a sicha from Motzaei Shabbos Parshas Lech Lecha 5738, the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, spoke most forcefully on this issue: “They just shouldn’t declare it out loud; there should be a settlement of the territories without noise or tumult. What’s relevant is the actual settlement activity. With regard to Heaven – when the Jewish People decide as they should – “it is revealed before Heaven,” while in regard to the physical world – the deed is the main thing.”

The Rebbe continued: “As a result, there is no need to make noise over this, and surely not to boast that ‘My strength and the might of my hand has accumulated this wealth for me.’ On the contrary, boasting that ‘My strength and the might of my hand, etc.’ could ch”v spoil things, and in addition, it’s not true.

“We must know that we are doing this on G-d’s shlichus and with His strength, and this will increase the power of the settlement activity – and regarding the strength of G-d, there is nothing that can hold it back ch”v.

“When they will follow this path – not only won’t the nations of the world protest [and there surely won’t be any Jewish casualties ch”v (for one person is an entire world), not even any wounded ch”v, in a manner of ‘half-killed’], on the contrary: it will bring the ‘Praise Hashem, all nations, laud Him, all peoples; for His kindness has overwhelmed us, etc.’ Even the ‘nations’ and the ‘peoples’ will say and praise openly before everyone that ‘His kindness has overwhelmed us,’ and that G-d’s Kindness has strengthened us (the entire Jewish People throughout the world, and particularly those Jews in the ‘land that the eyes of Hashem your G-d are always upon, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year’) – they will assist the Jewish People (not only in what they have already promised, but) in all manners of assistance (financial, etc.) that the Jewish People still need because Israel remains in exile.”