Hayovel:The Enemy Within: Hayovel Ministry-The Poison Apple of Relational Ev...

Hayovel:The Enemy Within: Hayovel Ministry-The Poison Apple of Relational Ev...: Reflections on the infamous "Hayovel Ministry" in Israel. Despite patriarch Tommy Waller's insistence that he did teshuva ...

Exploiting Jewish Tragedy

Murdered for being Jewish. May Hashem avenge their blood and comfort the families.

Jew-hatred may very well be the oldest extant contagion on earth. Historians, sociologists, and philosophers debate its cause. Yet an honest study of Jew-hatred defies academia’s constraints. The best scholars can do is to highlight its peculiarity and its distinctiveness from any other hatred on earth. It is eternal and manifests itself in ever-changing ways so that the Jew can be demonized as a communist and a capitalist often in the same breath. No scientific analysis can account for its ability to infect the hearts of the worst Jew-haters across time, region, or generations, and cause so many supposed civil societies to rise and butcher us. The scientific eye can never truly understand the disease because only a perspective rooted in Torah can provide insight into a metaphysical malady.

One devoid of Torah is least equipped to understand it. Chazal understood it best: “It is a known thing, that Esau hates Jacob”. Prior to the arrival of the true Jewish Mashiach, the worst elements of society invariably find the perfect societal scapegoat in the Jew. Perhaps in such politically correct times, many Jews would prefer to ignore the implications of chazal’s words and to retreat from provocative generalizations. Yet history shows us that it is so. Within the framework of being the “chosen people”, we stand as a lightning-rod both for the articulation of Judaism and in our rejection or distortion of it. In truth, there is no escaping it. Our job is to live and breathe authentic Judaism, yet we must remain cognizant of the constant need to defend ourselves from spiritual and physical attacks.

The virus claimed 11 more Jews recently Shabbat when a deranged Jew-hating gunman entered a Pittsburgh synagogue on Shabbat and sprayed a tapestry of death where they prayed. The blood of the martyred was still warm, their bodies barely in their graves, and the ghouls (both Jewish and gentile) saw an opportunity to feed on the carnage. To exploit Jewish tragedy for self-interest, vulgarians seized megaphones and trampled on the memory of our murdered brothers and sisters. As always, the perverse voices were multi-faceted:

·        Clergy/Lay Leaders: In an extraordinary outrage, many liberal Jews in America saw fit to continue taking their cues from CNN radicals by blaming President Trump for the massacre. Those who would open the doors to crazed Muslims and MS13 thugs in the name of open borders saw fit to blame Trump’s strong policies on protecting America’s borders (and I would say correctly) as inciting a lunatic Jew-hater. Where one finds correlation or causation is beyond the reasoning of any sane person. And only a fool would utter such madness. One of the most egregious examples of this chillul Hashem came from one of “Open-Orthodoxy’s” enlightened voices,  Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, who noted:

 

“Trump almost immediately blamed the victimized synagogue for not having enough security. He engaged in a classic political move of stoking fear to gain support as being the national protector amidst fearful chaos. If we build higher walls, if we turn away more strangers, if we have more guns, everything will be alright. Rather than build a society of trust, we should build a culture of suspicion? Close our tents? Rather than knock on our neighbors' doors, we should build more walls between us? All other minority groups feel at-risk right now amidst growing hate and we must get to know each other more deeply & support one another more loyally & compassionately. I'm grateful that so many partners in our social justice activism (Pastors, Muslims, immigrant-rights activists, LGBT leaders, etc.) have reached out to us in solidarity. We are not alone. None of us are.”

What a chillul Hashem from one who wears the crown of “Rabbi”. Another example illustrating how “open-orthodoxy” has more in common with reform than anything remotely halachic. In the face of tragedy, Yanklowitz found a reason to bash Trump and to highlight his own progressive agenda on guns, gays, the border, immigration, etc.

• The other end of the religious spectrum: Certain fringe elements, who in the past have solved the age-old philosophical issues of tzadik v’rah lo (why the righteous suffer) came out with statements claiming to know why Jews were murdered in Pittsburgh. Ironic how such people purport to understand every tragedy when it happens to secular Jews but cannot understand why religious Jews in a Har Nof shul were butchered a while back. A cursory analysis of such people exposes that such men are guided by hatred, and not love of Jews. No authentic man of Torah would utter this kind of filth or even listen to it. Such people would be well to remember what the Chazon Ish had to say about most Jews who don’t follow Torah today. To equate the majority as willful sinners is grotesque.

• Politicians: I expected the standard blathering of left-wing American politicians. But I was surprised when Israeli Michael Oren used the tragedy to advocate for the acceptance of non-halachic “liberal” Jews in Israel. It takes a certain kind of person to exploit tragedy to pander to progressive Jews in America. Not only is Oren nakedly ignorant of halacha, but he also showed that he isn’t a mensch.

• Jewish Hasbara Activists: It is equally vulgar to use the tragedy to demand Aliyah when we in Israel live in a country which allows an armed PLO to wreak havoc in our heartland, not to mention allowing incendiaries and rockets to fly across our southern skies and burn our peripheral south. Some of these types seem to relish in the opportunity to tell Jews that it is safer in Israel.

I want to make myself very clear on this point: Jews are generally required to live in Eretz Yisroel barring certain halachic categories which allow one to remain. Yet the only authentic reason to make Aliyah is the halachic imperative to live here. Certainly, there is tremendous nobility (I think) in a desire to change things and to live in the land where we are guaranteed to be under G-d’s hashgacha. But to claim that Jews will be safer in the short term is to lie to them since the reality is that Jewish blood is deemed cheaper in Israel by many leaders than it is in America. It is true that the Jew must not assume that any current condition of livability is sustainable forever. History shows that it is not so. I live in Israel, but I will not give a pass to our impotent leadership’s marriage to the age-old policy of restraint and retreat in the face of Arab terror.

• Gentile “Friends”: Too many gentile “friends” on the hasbara scene try to make a buck from naïve Jews who require unprincipled token gentiles. Some of these advocates have the gall to try to define Jews, and on occasion to even define halacha! A genuine righteous non-Jew should not opine on matters of Torah. So we shouldn’t give a damn when the kind of reprobate who would state that “The Israeli Rabbinate can go piss up a rope”, has things to say about martyred Jews. Or similarly, we shouldn't provide a microphone to a non-Jewish activist who spouts the rhetoric of the Left, tries to appropriate Judaism and mix it with goyish pop culture, and who had the nerve to tell Jews in a Chanukah video “to own your @#$%t!”, before trying to fuse Jewish identity with a lyric from Beyoncé.

• Evangelical “Friends”: More absurd than the former category are the many evangelicals sharing their heartfelt sympathy, whose very ideology mandates our spiritual destruction. Chanukah reminds us that spiritual predators are even more dangerous to the Jewish experience. As such, the crocodile tears of those who wish to “restore us” or “complete us” are repugnant. In this sense, it was certainly correct to loudly oppose and condemn Mike Pence for bringing a messianic to a political rally.

Conclusion

• A message to the ghouls and the fools, on both sides of the river. Jewish blood is not butter to flavor your bread. Our people were murdered. The occasion is not a forum for selfish self-aggrandizement, or to peddle false sociological philosophies.

• Only an insensitive Jew takes political potshots at a president who by any barometer is not an anti-Semite. This would be so even if he didn’t have a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandchildren. On the contrary. Whether one likes Trump or not, his history past and present is one of kindness and goodwill to Jews, and what I believe is a genuine affinity for the Jewish people.

• Jews were murdered because Jew-hatred is eternal and will remain so until the Messiah arrives. In the diaspora or in Israel.

• The existence of a modern state of Israel gives us the theoretical ability to deal with our enemies via the Divine gift of an army and self-sovereignty. If only we feared G-d and not goyim, we would prosper. The solution in Eretz Yisroel is to use the full arm of a G-d given army to destroy our enemies, and when possible to stretch that arm to help and protect Jews in the diaspora.

• In America, and for that matter in any country, those who refuse for one reason or another to vacate the diaspora, must still maintain a commitment to protect Jewish lives. Those who espouse notions of Jewish self-defense in the manner of the original JDL have ample opportunities to show Jewish strength and protect Jewish lives.

• Many states in America allow people to carry firearms. In such environments, Jews can provide armed security at any community center or synagogue and to patrol neighborhoods. Yet even those Jews in blue states must deal with the limitations and make decisions. Personally, I subscribe to the maxim that it is better to be judged by 12, then buried by six men carrying shovels.

• Baseball is legal everywhere, and Home Depot sells pieces of 10-inch rebar. If necessary, one does what one must to protect Jewish lives regardless of man’s law. And if one eschews the mantle of what they may see as vigilantism, let them hire trained professionals to do the job.

Anti-semitic dog, Robert Bowers, may he die a brutal death.

When necessary, all methods to protect Jewish lives are appropriate. Politics has nothing to do with it. From the Torah’s perspective, the notion of stable, responsible, people having guns for self-defense is a no-brainer. It is a mitzvah to live. The Torah grants us the obligation to preserve life. The gun is merely a tool to deal with the cruel. Attempts to remove guns from the hands of decent people ensures more dead Jews. In the case of self-preservation, and the preservation of Jews, the Torah’s answer to anti-Semites with guns, is better guns, better training, and the preemptive ability to put one in a Jew-hater’s lung before he takes another breath.

Now is the time to mourn for the many Jews murdered and maimed by a Jew-hating monster named Robert Bowers (yemach shmo vzichro), and to ensure that within the stretch of our Jewish arms, no more Jews will die at the hands of ugly men. Neither in Gush Etzion, Paris, or in Pittsburgh.

Rabbi Meir Kahane: My Rebbe (That I Never Met)

Contemporary "pop popularity" aside, despite the presence of "Kahane Tzadak" slogans and stickers plastered on walls throughout the country, the vast majority of respectable "right-wing" Jews opposed Rabbi Kahane during his lifetime. Many condemned him. Very few synagogues gave him a pulpit to speak, even rarer were those individuals with influence who courageously supported him. During his lifetime, mainstream Jews viewed him as a pariah. This is my portrait of a genuine Jewish hero, first published in "The Jewish Press" in 2014:  http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/fuchs-focus/rabbi-meir-kahane-my-rebbe-that-i-never-met/2014/11/10/

No Hero Of Mine

When that time of year returns, its time to revisit the authentic legacy of a man with Jewish blood on his hands. From the cruel actions of the "Altalena" massacre in his youth to the suicidal treason of Oslo as  Prime Minister, Yitchak Rabin's actions sent many Jews to an early grave. On the pagan altar of the Moloch of false peace, Rabin offered the Jewish people to burn as his sacrifices: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/no-hero-of-mine/2014/11/03/

The Coexistence Cult

Now Featured in The Jewish Press: The Coexistence Cult

“And he shall be a wild ass of a man: his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the face of all his brethren.”-Genesis 16:12 (JPS Tanach)

Ari Fuld’s (may G-d avenge his blood) recent murder in Gush Etzion at the hands of a 17-year-old Arab monster, shocked the entire nation; in a country where murder of Jews is commonplace. Ari’s killer couldn’t even grow a beard, but his immersion in a cultural/religious climate of psychopathic evil, compelled him to study vital targets on the human body to kill Jews with a kitchen knife. This is the kind of human disease we are dealing with in Israel. Living things who breath and stand upright and look like men, but who lack the morality of desert jinn or vipers.

As a prominent activist whose videos were featured on Facebook, Ari left an indelible imprint on an audience accustomed to seeing him online. The void was felt by many who never met him but often “saw” him on video. The horror is magnified when you consider the sobering fact that he leaves behind a wife and four children. The myriads of testimonials illustrate that Ari truly loved Eretz Yisroel and the Jewish people. And with his last breath and sacrifice he epitomized this love in the most literal sense.

Like so many acts of Arab savagery against Jews, it was all captured on videotape. The sneak attack on Ari and his brutal stabbing. And his moment of superhuman heroism. The soul screams to the Heavens to watch the grainy footage of an Amalekite lethally stabbing Ari, and then seeing him defy his imminent death by overcoming physical obstacles while stumbling and crashing into walls. Yet he unholstered his gun, took a practiced stance and fired, trying to kill one who exchanged his humanity for the blood Moloch of jihad. Had Ari done nothing he would have died a kadosh by sanctifying Hashem’s as a murdered Jew. But to die while trying to save other Jews he died a Jewish gibor.

As horrifying as it is to watch a Jew being killed, I believe it is important (with the obvious exceptions of children and certain temperaments) to watch the video at least once for several reasons:

1) To honor Ari’s last moments of sacrifice and heroism. I agree with the theory that his heroism might have led to his own death, since given the severity of his wounds, he needed to sit still and try to stop the bleeding until EMT arrived. His attempt to terminate his murderer as he bled to death displayed extraordinary heroism. He was more concerned with saving other Jews, and it may have cost him his life.

 2)To inculcate hatred towards those who wear the Yoke of Amalek. To see the actions of genuine evil. Jews need to understand the concept of evil, which explains the total war we wage against our enemies according to Torah law.

3)To feel, bleed, and cry over a murdered Jew. At the end of the day, Ari is one of so many people who were murdered in Israel for being a Jew. Murdered by Arabs who wouldn’t understand coexistence if it smacked them in the head.

Ari’s murder is an all too common tragedy in our tiny country, where governments shirk their sacred duty of protecting Jewish lives. Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud act no different than the left on issues of security. Consider the southern border of our country and convince me otherwise. Months of devastating arson and terror balloons and insane destruction, with the same pattycake response, from a supposed “right-wing” government. Shameful. When Netanyahu finally loses power, it will be because the Left will have convinced enough people that the supposed party of security failed to protect the country. It matters little that they will continue with the same impotent response to Arab violence.

The Cry of False Peace Prophets

And in the aftermath of this monstrous tragedy, we hear the same perverted voices speaking of coexistence with Arabs. We heard about the site of the murder, Rami Levi, being a haven of “coexistence” for Jews and Arabs. Many of these peace warriors are also naïve “indigenous rights activists”, a good many who believe that Jews AND Arabs are both indigenous, and that we can remain in the land together if we embrace our shared “Semitism”. We hear how Arabs and Jews meet and greet and drink coffee. As I’ve noted before, the Jews of Hebron in 1929 also would have sworn that they had coexistence. Some of them also shared Turkish coffee with their Arab neighbors. And yet, their neighbors butchered them in 1929. The ghosts of Hebron (so close to Gush Etzion) scream out to us that Amalek does indeed reside in our land. That voracious “Am Lak” that lap up blood as a dying man laps up water. It is time to eschew pacifism and gird ourselves in the righteous garb of halachic warfare. Coexistence be damned.

“The Arabs are a cancer in our midst. And you don't coexist with a cancer. A cancer you either cut out, and throw out, or you die.”- (Rabbi Meir Kahane, on 60 Minutes)

I have written about some of these new peaceniks before in my articles  The New Peace Movements Exposed, and The New Indigenous Right: Hardline Or Soft-Boiled? One personality I have not addressed previously is Inon Dan Kehati who heads The Home (Habayit). On September 23, Inon posted the following:

“One week after the murder of Efrat resident, Ari Fuld HYD, we have returned to one of the only islands of sanity and normality in the Judean hills, where Jews and Palestinians shop, work and having coffee together.

The vicious act of the Palestinian terrorist, who took the life of a father of 4, will not deceive us into believing that all Palestinians are terrorists, and will not hold us back working in the most inclusive way, with people from both Jewish and Palestinian communities in the area of Bethlehem and Gush Etzion.

We will continue to expand the inter-communal connections between Palestinians and Jews in Judea and Samaria, and work towards a joint future, based on loyalty to the homeland of the forefathers and foremothers, with the people who live on it, with faith.

The Home is sending our deepest condolences and grief to the Fuld family.”

To be fair, Inon seems sincerer in his deadly naivete than other faces on the new peace circuit, which makes his beliefs much more dangerous. Unlike many of the other “new peace” activists who opine on indigeneity while presumably fressing on majul dates, he and his cadre of believers frequently go out and pick up trash rather than merely opine on their silly fantasy of “understanding narratives” from the confines of contrived orchestrated “meetings”. But dangerous ideas (despite the general belief of their well-intentioned practitioners) remain dangerous regardless of the sincerity of suicidal actions. Such ventures render Jews vulnerable to those who are nursed on the kind of Jew-hatred that would impress Goebbels. Furthermore, more than a few mainstream religious activists have met with Inon and others at these “New Peace” meetings. Meeting with “good Arabs” are akin to the notion of German Jews meeting with token “good German’s” during the Holocaust. Obscene and inappropriate. The only difference is that the Arabs don’t have the power to throw us into the ovens today. They have the desire but lack the means. And history has shown how quickly Arab friends turn sour in the frenzy of massacre.

Beware the foolish new “peace gurus”. Their ideology is no less toxic than the classical peace-fools. The only difference is that they can appeal to a demographic of “religious/traditionalists who would never consider entertaining such notions. They have the added fantasy of thinking they can keep everything (land) with those who overwhelmingly deny our right to anything, including our lives. Shared narratives and the nonsense of a shared indigenous “Semitic” identity is lunacy. Most Arabs would never truly except such idiocy. And at the end of the day, if you watch video footage of some of the more publicized meetings, it becomes evident as Rabbi Meir Kahane stated, that we are dealing with a conflict he deemed “immutable”. Even the decent Arabs in attendance have expectations that could never be met without endangering every Jew in Israel. And to say otherwise is to be disingenuous and patronizing.

To cultivate a hatred of evil, one must understand evil, and the forces of political correctness which render it impossible to examine Islam. As I noted in my article Islam: A reflection on the dominant hatred of our region: Islam's War against the Jews and the Torah:

“Islam is as much a scourge upon the earth as the strain of Naziism. Yet unlike the war against Naziism, there is no international force fighting Islam on the battlefield in a way that represents a definitive war against Islam. Squirmishes here and there. But never against Islam. No current mainstream politician will ever openly declare a war against Islam. The most right-wing politicians still use the term “extremist Islam” or “militant Islam”. And that is the problem.

Too many Jews want to find a common denominator with Islam, a supposed kinship based upon monotheism. From a Torah religious standpoint, the Muslims may indeed be monotheists. (Generally, this is the established position of prominent Torah scholars past and present, but this is hardly monolithic. The more ambitious reader can research the position of the Tzitz Eliezer.) Nevertheless, their monotheism is irrelevant, since they are an ideology of murder. Their ravenous blood deity is not Hashem, Heaven forbid. Allah is a drinker of innocent blood.”

The Torah’s solution hasn’t changed: Parshat Masai. “Vehorashtem”- “You shall drive out all the land’s inhabitants before you, and you shall destroy all their prostration stones, all their molten images you shall destroy, and all of their high places you shall demolish.” (Numbers 33: 52-53) It continues: “If you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land, those whom you allow to remain shall be barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land in which you live. Then, I will do to you what I had planned to do them.” (Numbers 33:55-56)

Many years ago, Rabbi Meir Kahane insisted that transferring the Arabs out of Eretz Yisroel was the only solution. So many years later, the unspoken and politically taboo concept of Arab transfer remains the only honest response to an enemy who cannot live with those who share his own nationality/religion, let alone those they see as accursed dhimmis. The ticking time bomb of “Israeli-Arabs” represents a fifth column. They don’t need to be a majority. They are powerful enough when they align with the left to affect our national policy. We saw that with the Oslo Accords. No amount of Turkish coffee will ever rehabilitate a culture and ethos of jihad and “martyrdom”. It will only ensure that more Jews are gutted with knives in the parking lots of supposed safe havens.

One final note: While perusing Ari’s writings to get insight into his life, I discovered that he had a consistent position regarding Arab terrorists: No terrorist should be allowed to survive his act of terror. Ari did his utmost to destroy his killer. Perhaps now, those self-righteous moralists (not a few from the religious camps) who attacked Elor Azaria for killing a terrorist after he was restrained, will shut their mouths.  Elor is a living hero. I could care less with the argument that Elor was afraid that the Arab terrorist had an explosive on his person. My Torah based morality requires no such explanation or excuse. If it could be proven otherwise, his actions would remain noble. By killing the terrorist, Elor assured that the barbarian would never be released from prison to kill another Jew, something which Heaven forbid could very well happen to Ari’s killer. We’ve seen it time and again when governments release Arabs with Jewish blood on their hands. Likud governments do it as well as their Labor counterparts. Elor guaranteed that no future orphans and widows would grieve from those hands. Yet if a recent report is correct, he can’t even obtain a gun today to protect himself.

Ari Fuld was stolen from this world, because Jewish blood is treated cheaply by the Israeli government. With a culture of havlaga corroding every fiber of government, any Arab with a knife can casually enter a local area where Jews buy groceries with the deluded self-perception of safety. The Left cultivates this disease with their appeasement and indoctrination via media, culture, academia, education, and their surrogates in government. The new “rightist” peaceniks are as insane as the craven Likud and the classical left. Because despite their pretense to not being leftist (by insisting that they oppose territorial compromise) their darling ideologies of “indigenous rights” and “peace” are beloved leftist ideals that every sane person should reject regardless of its peculiar new face.  

The new peace movements speak of building relationships, while Arabs ensure that our cemeteries grow larger. Until the Arabs understand Jewish might, they will continue to bleed us. Our blood is more precious than buildings or trees, neither of which impresses them. Those who congregate at the site of Ari’s murder with non-representative samplings of token Arabs, will have blood on their hands when the next Jew is gutted. And it will happen. The ingredients are simple, and they are everywhere. An Arab with the requisite “oh-so common” Jew-hatred, the will and intent to kill, and a simple kitchen knife.

Our lesson to Ari’s spilled blood should not be one of love and coexistence. Only the mad would see in such horror the need to march in “the mercy of fools’” parade of self-righteous peace shamans. The lesson should be one of Jewish barzel (iron) and unrelenting cruelty to modern-day Nazis, and a commitment to the kind of government sponsored military action to make Arabs wish they were back in Arabia. And we in Israel should of course accommodate them by throwing them the hell out of Israel. They can go to Jordan or Egypt, or perhaps Germany, France, and England, which seem equally viable options. Europe deserves them. Transfer may seem extreme in today’s morally neutered age. Yet transfer is just. It is after all, the halachic requirement.

Ari Fuld Murdered By An Arab, May G-d Avenge His Blood

I just read online that activist Ari Fuld was murdered by an Arab terrorist in Gush Etzion. May G-d avenge his blood, and the blood of all martyred Jews at the hands of these modern day Amalekites. So terrible. May HaShem comfort his family in this darkest hour. #TheyMustGo pic.twitter.com/g6Zc3KrkYJ

— The Judean Hammer (@TheJudeanHammer) September 16, 2018

The Dangers of Contemporary Hasbara

"Those who cannot debate, defame."- Rabbi Meir Kahane (May G-d avenge his blood)

A Critique of Pure Hasbara

My colleagues and I are often libeled and slandered by social media "hasbara" activists (bloggers and such), for our criticism of their positions and beliefs as it relates to Israel and the Jewish people. Rather than engage in dialogue and respond with reasoned discourse, they invariably resort to defamation and lies. So what are some of my critiques of contemporary hasbara? Find out more in the following article, originally featured in The Jewish Press: A Critique of Pure Hasbara

Indigenous Idiocy

Revisiting the nonsense of "Indigenous Rights" advocacy as it pertains to Jews. The notion is foolish and contrary to Torah. Periodically we need to recirculate articles where we expose the dangers of adopting soft-boiled theories created by guilt ridden white liberal sociologists. Indigenous rights may indeed exist, but it's existence is akin to phrenology. It exists solely in the minds of simpletons and pinheads who adhere to an artificial construct, arbitrarily defined by its many adherents. They can't even agree themselves on how to define it or apply it. Click the accompanying link to read more: Indigenous Idiocy

Mistreating Men/Trusting Man: Impediments To True Repentance

Disclaimer: Here at "The Judean Hammer" we never hesitate to call out other Jews for their dangerous beliefs and actions which harm us as a people. Ideally, we prefer to engage in civil dialogue with civil Jews and gentiles, but to do this, the other party has to be civil. When nasty folks take it to the gutter, we respond in kind, and all bets are off. This includes those weakling social media twits who eschewed civil debate on these issues long ago.

Despite the fact that many of my Jewish detractors would gladly run over me with a truck if they could, I forgive most of these humorless, angry, WEAK Jewish hasbarites, despite their slander and libelous efforts to run myself and my colleagues through the mud. Unlike one misguided angry fellow, I would risk my life to protect his nasty self were his Arab gardener to suddenly turn on him.

But I will also call him and his ilk out, whether they be overt leftists aligning with Arabs or attacking "settlements", hasbarite celebrity hounds who employ Arabs and get hot and heavy over the next Eurovision, or religious Jews who betray Torah and the nation for free evangelical labor in Samaria.

I will not belabor the point. Civility for the civil. Sarcasm and satire and mockery for simpletons who started with the name calling. And if I believe that a forum is limp-wrist-ed, weak, spineless, and an echo chamber of triggered neurotics, I will state that outright. And if the party becomes unhinged, (and they will) that speaks more about their own insecurities and neuroses than anything else.

I am resharing something different this evening. Because proper Jewish actions are an extension of proper Jewish thoughts. And in an era where we all too often resort to the superficial digital world, sometimes articulated thoughts falls by the wayside.  These are my reflections on teshuva before Rosh Hashana. Originally published in The Jewish Press: Mistreating Men/Trusting Man: Impediments To True Repentance