Lazer Beams

Being Moral in an Immoral Society

Dear Rabbi,

I'm a Manhattan attorney, and I usually read your blog with my coffee and sandwich at lunch. I like your hard-hitting material, but sometimes you sound like Tiny Tim singing "Tiptoe through the Tulips". If I took your roll-with-the-punch emuna advice, I'd be trampled in my profession. Your morality is fine for rabbinical seminary, but it doesn't hold water in the Big Apple where it's a dog-eat-dog world. I attended a Yeshiva high school myself; the Gemorra is a superb mind-development tool, but excuse me, I don't see how its lofty moral platitudes are applicable to our society today. In short, how in the world do you expect a person to be moral in an immoral society? Best wishes, Louis

Dear Louis,

Look at all the immoral tough-guy tyrants from time immemorial. None had happy endings. Their success is always short-lived. King David taught us that the meek (humble) shall inherit the earth (Psalms 37:11); Hollywood, Wall Street, and many of your professional cronies don't subscribe to King David's thoughts, but meanwhile, King David's principle has proved to be historically correct for thousands of years. Maybe the role of a Spartan warrior, a Viking, or a Roman centurion is a lot more appealing than the humble role of a wise Talmudic scholar (which you obviously don't appreciate, since it seems to me that you regard your Talmud studies as a figment of your high-school past - please correct me if I'm wrong, barrister), yet the wise scholars are still with us today, while the Spartans, the Romans, and the Vikings have vanished from the face of the earth. I can go on and on with more case studies, but I think you get the point.

Now, let's look at our album of "meek", handicapped anti-macho moral types, who really did inherit the earth:

* Franklin D. Roosevelt - paralyzed from the waist down, yet successfully lead the United States through one of the most difficult times in its history.
* Helen Keller - blind, yet pioneered Braille and our entire system of special education for the blind.
* Thomas Edison - deaf; "I utilized my handicap to increase my powers of concentration, since I didn't have to listen to the small talk and nonsense of other people," he wrote in his memoirs, and rose to become the greatest of American inventors.
* Mahatma Gandhi - a frail weakling, but a giant of emotional strength. Gandhi was the father of "peaceful resistance," the mode of non-violent protest that led to the independence of India.
* Ray Charles - blind, but one of the giants of 20th Century American music.

Notice how history remembers all the above anti-macho types with love and admiration. Now, take a good look at the tyrants you know. Is there a single one who is happy? Has a single one been successful on the long run? Does history love and admire Haman, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, or Saddam Hussein? I don't think so.

The choice is yours, Louis. By choosing a moral path, you'll have The Almighty on your side. With His help, you'll always be a winner. Emuna makes you tough - not your biceps or a fast macho tongue. Blessings always, LB

Heck No, We Won't Go

"Mutiny", famous photo by Jim Coyne (!966), of the 101st Airborne Division troops in Tuy Hoa, Vietnam. Back then, a whole battalion of America's best paratroopers told their commanders what to do with their stupid orders.

Orders from the Pentagon filtered their way from the fat-cat after-shave smelling brass all the way down to battalion level in South Vietnam. The brass wanted to look good in the media. Back then, Vietnam was still a popular war, and most folks viewed the far away reports like a football game: If on a certain day "only" 18 American soldiers were killed, but they succeeded in Killing 40 Vietcong, then the USA wins the day's "game", 40-18. Most of the time the Americans lied about the body counts, and added noncombatant civilians to the stats of supposedly dead communist insurgents.

The 101st was supposed to capture a "strategic" hill that had no strategic value other than victory propoganda. It was supposed to be an easy piece of real estate to grab from the locals. But, the Vietcong - who had all the American plans down to a detail, with superb intel and an the advantage of home turf - laid a classic guerilla ambush, and an entire company of the 101st was wiped out. The Pentagon was pieved, and with no intel and not an iota of what was happening in the field, the brass ordered the 101st to retake Tuy Hoa. The enlisted men of 2 or 3 companies - all draftees - refused. If I'm not mistaken,  this famous mutiny triggered the grassroots anti-Vietnam war movement in the USA.

The men of the 101st didn't refuse orders out of ideology. They just didn't want to get sent home in a body-bag for nothing. When told to take the hill, the enlisted men told the officers (after censoring), "Heck no, we won't go!"

*********

Why does history point an accusing finger at the entire German nation for the holocaust? Simple - the rank and file German soldier was more than happy to shoot a Jew in the head or push him into the gas chambers. Not only did the entire German nation condone the holocaust, they willfully and readily carried out their orders, moral or not.

********

A group of dedicated religious Israeli soldiers from a crack combat unit has now been incarcerated for 28 days for their refusal to participate in exiling Jewish people from Jewish property in the holy city of Hevron, only a few hundred meters away from the Machpelah Cave, the holy gravesite of our forefathers and mothers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah.

Nothing is above the law of Torah. Any government in Israel that violates the Torah has no legitimacy. To be sure, a soldier can't decide on his own what is in accordance with Torah and what's not. But, if the religious leaders of this generation say that a command is immoral or against Torah - as in the case of the Kfir regiment insubordinates refusal to drag Jews out of their homes in Hevron yesterday - then refusing a command is the order of the day. Sometimes, one has to be a conscientious objector and say "Heck no, I won't go."

Today, the mutineers of the 101st are considered heroes. After Moshiach comes, the Kfir regiment mutineers will be considered heroes too.

The Bright Red Apple

My esteemed publisher and very dear friend Yaakov "Eddie" Kalati is a phenominal storyteller. He told me the following irresistable jewel in Hebrew. Here's my English translation:

I was enjoying a beautiful walk down a beach-front avenue in the late afternoon sun enjoying the breeze off the water, when I reached the bus stop where I'd catch the bus that would take me home. I sat down on the bench with a few other commuters, eyeballing all the interesting people that were standing at the station and waiting for the bus. There was a young mother with a baby carriage, a retired couple that looked like a pair of white turtle doves, a lady with baskets overflowing with fruits and vegetables who had obviously just completed her weekly shopping at the outdoor market, and a pair of paratroopers with sunburnt noses and wind-cracked lips.

A few minutes later, a swivel-hipped young lady of about 19 arrived at the bus stop. I won't describe her, but let's just say that modesty was not her most outstanding trait. At a quick estimation, her body was about 35% covered and 65% uncovered. I took the daily newspaper out of my attache case, and buried my face in it.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a man with a black hat, a long black beard, and a black coat approaching the bus stop. Obviously, he was some kind of Chassid. His eyes quickly scanned the bus stop and those who were waiting for the next bus. When he spotted the immodesty, he turned his gaze downward to the sidewalk and moved back to wait for the bus under the canopy of an adjacent fruit and vegetable store. I figured that he didn't want to be ensnared by forbidden sights, but suddenly, he came back to the bus stop with a big bright red apple in his hand.

To all of our amazement, the Chassid walked straight toward the unclad girl. He extended his arm, showed her the apple, and said, "Here, young lady; this is for you."

The young lady was totally surprised. She had no idea what a Chassid with beard and payis wanted from her. "For me?" she asked, almost shocked. "Why?"

Every one of the onlookers seemed to be asking the same question.

The Chassid smiled, and while still looking at the sidewalk said:

"Eve didn't know that she was nude either until she ate an apple...," he said, and disappeared.

Impurade 2007: Oh no, here we go again...

"They have eyes, but they cannot see" (Psalm 135:16). There is no better description for a regime that never learns a lesson, no matter how tragic it is.

The Midrash tells us that the only right the People of Israel have to the Land of Israel is by their living in holiness. The Torah says specifically that our continued presence in the Holy Land is on the condition that we don't act like the wanton and lustful Canaanite nations that were here before us (See Shemot 23:20-33, Devorim 9:5). If we fail to keep Hashem's laws, we lose the deed to Hashem's Holy Land, G-d forbid - it's explicit and simple.

The anti-emuna regime thinks that Israel can be Monte Carlo. They think that a fiasco like this will improve tourism or make them more popular in decadent eyes. What warped thinking.

The planned Impurade of 2005 brought us the destruction and exile of Jewish Gaza, where nearly 10,000 Jews lost their homes. The planned Impurade of 2006 brought us the disaster of the so-called 2nd Lebanon War, where nearly one million Jews were forced to evacuate their homes. Can't the silly regime see a connection? The holy Land of Israel can't stomach debauchery and impurity. Who are the daft leaders that want to chance another public show of anti-Torah abominations, like a dare in Hashem's face? As it is, Sderot is becoming a ghost town. Is anarchy in the name of democracy worth losing more towns and cities?

Dealing with this subject is most distasteful to me - there are 1000 more wholesome and pleasurable things to write about. Yet, someone has to stand up and yell at full volume that Israel is in grave danger. The decadent public shows of impurity on our Holy Land are a much bigger threat than Bin Ladin, Achmedinejad and his nukes, the Hamas, and the PLO rolled into one. We must stand firm together, just as we would in the face of an attack on our borders. Indeed, another Impurade is a threat deep within our midst. May Hashem help us.

What we really need is a Prime Minister like Rabbi Yehuda Levin, someone who fears nothing other than Hashem.

The High Price of Hatred

Since the recent Lebanon War, I've been walking around with a kasha (serious question) in my head: The greatest tzaddikim of Judaism are buried in the Galilee - The Ariza"l in Safed, Rebbe Shimon Bar Yochai in Meron, Rebbe Meir Baal HaNess in Tiberias, among many others, whose saintly and blessed memories are so sacred to the Jewish people. Why didn't these great tzaddikim have the power to overturn the harsh decree of the 3,900-plus Hizbolla missiles that fell in the Galilee, causing exile and destruction?

Today, I received an answer.

After Shabbat was over, I received a phone call from a very reliable source, "Mr. K.",a person with two feet on the ground that gives loads of charity, far from the spotlights of center stage. Mr. K. told me that the Baba Sali (Rav Yisrael Abu-Chatzera, of blessed and saintly memory, pictured at left, one of the past generation's greatest tzaddikim, who is buried in the town of Netivot in the south of Israel) came to him in a dream.

The Baba Sali loved every Jew with all his heart, and greatly suffered from the senseless intramural hatred and contentions among Jews. In the dream, Baba Sali told Mr. K. that not even the greatest tzaddikim in the upper portals of heaven have the power to rescind the harsh decress in the Heavenly Court that result from the sin of sinas chinam, or senseless hatred. He also told Mr. K. that, "Not even my gravesite in Netivot has the power of preventing Hamas missiles from reaching there, just as the Hizbulla missiles reached Safed, Tiberias, and Haifa. "When they do, later this year G-d forbid," warned the Baba Sali, "you'll see how upset Hashem is about the hatred and lack of unity among the Jewish people." Baba Sali then disappeared, and Mr. K. woke up.

In short, Baba Sali told Mr. K. that Netivot is in danger, unless we all clean up our act.

Mr. K. asked me if I thought his dream was true; I told him that by all means I believe it's true. Indeed, Mr. K's phone call was also a message to me from above, to answer my question about the missiles that fell in the Galilee, as follows: Just as sinas chinam caused the destruction of our Holy Temple, sinas chinam led to the recent devastation of the Galilee; not even the greatest tzadikkim could overturn the decree of the Hizbulla missiles caused by sinas chinam.

We had all best take this message to heart. Hating another Jew is worse than eating pork; not even tshuva and Yom Kippur can atone for the sin of hating another Jew, unless the guilty person makes peace with his fellow Jew and uproots the hatred from his heart.

While strengthening our emuna, we'd all be smart to strengthen our love for our fellow Jew. The security of Israel depends on it.

The Melitzer Rebbe shlit'a told me on more than one occasion that no terrorist or enemy can harm a Jew until one Jew harms another Jew. The result - those who so irresponsibly think, write, speak, or outright harm other Jews expose our borders to terrorist missiles. Can you imagine after your 120 years are up on this earth, that you face an accusation that you're responsible for the destruction of the north of Israel? You protest, and say that's crazy! The heavenly court then shows a video of you talking against other Jews...

Is it worth it? Heck no. Let's stop the senseless hate. The Chofetz Chaim said that even zealous hate is a bad thing, for those who become accustomed to hating others for a good reason soon begin hating others for no reason at all.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslev says that the best way to go is to judge others fairly in all circumstances. If you can't find a reason to think favorably about your fellow Jew, invent a reason! Your life may depend on it.

Behold your leaders, O Israel

Countless times, I've seen the Melitzer Rebbe shlit'a skip meals and entire nights of sleep because he was helping a family in urgent need or sitting by someone's sick bed. On numerous occasions, I've also seen him give every last shekel at his disposal to an emergency charity.

Once, the mafia was chasing a young man who owed them money. The young man didn't know who to turn to; he called Rav Shalom Arush shlit'a. Rav Shalom picked him up in the middle of the night and brought the young man to the Breslover Yeshiva in Jerusalem while endangering himself, and then arranged a debt settlement for the young man with the cutthroats.

I could go on and on with stories of dedication about this generation's true tzaddikim who selflessly concern themselves with the plight of other human beings in trouble, out of purest altruism, without expecting a thing in return. They only want to bring gratification to Hashem.

One the other hand...

How does the Commander of the IDF react when two of his soldiers are abducted by the Hizbolla and carried off into Lebanon, when at the same time a tank was ambushed and other soldiers were killed? He picks up the phone and calls his stockbroker. Despite fresh POW's, new orphans, new widows,  families beside themselves in grief and worry, Israel's security on the line, imminent danger, and Katyusha rockets falling already, Dan Halutz directs his attention to his investment portfolio, which of course are his highest priority.

Israeli pharmacies will be completely sold out of Dramamine today.

Halutz proves that the military leaders exhibit the same characteristics as the civilian leaders, for both stem from the same population. When one is corrupt, so is the other. Where one is devoid of ethical conduct, so is the other. In his lack of emuna and his disdain of Torah, Halutz shows the same egotism and self-serving lack of moral fiber as his bosses Peretz and Olmert.

To paraphrase Hashem's reprimand following the golden calf fiasco (see Exodus 32:8), "They have strayed quickly from the way I commanded them... these are your leaders, O faithless Israel." These are your promises, O Olmert.

The moral corruption can't go on like this. Moshiach is bound to come soon. Please Hashem, if You won't send us Moshiach now, at least instill the spirit of tshuva and emuna in all of our hearts; we're Your children - You must save us! The people of Israel are wonderful - help them see the truth and rise to fight the real battle, the battle against the Yezter Hara.

Israel disparaged martyrs

Major Ro'i Klein, of blessed and heroic memory הי"ד - the deputy battalion commander from the Golani brigade who was killed in Bint Jbail last week, died a heroic death in total sanctification of Hashem's name. After calling out "Shema Yisrael", he jumped on a hand grenade to save the lives of his soldiers. Klein lived with his wife and two young children in the community of Eli that Olmert has slated for destruction in his insane convergence program. Such is the reward of an Israeli super-hero and martyr.

1st Lieutenant Amichai Merhavia, of blessed and heroic memory הי"ד - who was also killed in the battle, also lived in Eli. In photographs making their way through the Internet, Merhavia is seen being beaten by police as he passively resisted the destruction of the Gilad Farm in Samaria in 2002. Last summer prior to the expulsion of Israeli civilians from Gaza and the withdrawal of IDF forces, Merhavia sent a private letter to Halutz. In it he explained why he believed the operation was wrong. Halutz reportedly ordered him thrown out of the army. His commanders intervened and Merhavia was placed on a three-week leave.

Such is the story of Israel's disparaged martyrs. Give your life and lose your home.

Carolyn Glick has a cogent picture of what's happening here. Her observations are heads up, but I disagree with her conclusion - we don't need a more vocal opposition, we need a more moral leadership that's committed to tshuva and the laws of Torah.

No contradiction

The Evil Inclination (Yetzer Hora) is a having a field day with the GayParade business. The media is now reporting that signs were posted in Jerusalem's religious neighborhoods offering a reward to anyone that kills a gay person, heaven forbid. I strongly condemn these ugly posters and the dark-side people that are behind them.

No G-d fearing person wrote such placards. I believe that it's a provocation of those who want to discredit the religious public and arouse sympathy for their waning cause. Yet, if the police do nail whoever's behind those terrible placards, I hope they lock them up behind bars.

Rav Moshe Sternbuch shlit'a, head of the Edah Haredit rabbinical court and a leading opponent of the planned Gay March in Jerusalem, said Tuesday that he was opposed to violence against homosexuals. "We must protest the desecration of the Holy Land," said Rav Sternbuch in a phone interview. "But we must do it nonviolently."

It's time to make something crystal clear: Every Jew is my brother or sister. A person doesn't lift a finger against a brother or sister; on the contrary, the Torah commands us to come to the aid of a fellow Jew. Do you know what that means? If thugs would attack a gay Jew, religious law requires me to do everything in my power to come to that Jew's assistance. An erring brother is still a brother. But, if that gay brother wants to flaunt evil in public and make a mockery of Jerusalem's holiness, then I must try my best to stop him.

There's no contradiction between loving a fellow Jew and fighting against his or her anti-Torah ideology, such as the way we fight against assimilation, abortion, and the like. King David said (Psalms 97:10), "Those who love Hashem despise evil." A Jew may have an evil ideology, but he or she is still a son or daughter of the King. Don't forget that in the heat of an argument.

Integrity and spirituality

Maybe you know people who enjoy flaunting Tibetan phrases, rolling their eyeballs, and burning lots of myrrh-scented candles and incense. Maybe you know other people who walk around quoting scripture, and then look down at you, saying, "Where were you at services last week?" Neither of these types has anything to do with genuine spirituality...

Here's a fool-proof method to find out if a person is spiritual or not: Conduct a business transaction with that person, and if he or she deals with fairness and integrity, you can bet that they're bona-fide spiritually-oriented people.

When a person's soul leaves the body at the termination of the physical life on this earth, the first question the Heavenly Court asks is, "Did you negotiate in good faith?", in other words, did you do business fairly (Talmud, tractate Shabbos, pg. 31). It's fine if a person listens to sitar music or quotes Kabbala after having dealt honestly with his/her fellow human, but without integrity, forget about spirituality.

High tech, low ethics

Have you ever heard of the "360 Evaluation"? It's a dog-eat-dog system used by leading high-tech companies whereby everybody rates everybody - superiors their subordinates, subordinates their superiors, and workers their coworkers. The outcome is a free-for-all of slander, revenge, and intrigue.

One of the senior design engineers of a leading Israeli high-tech firm was faced with a mandatory "360", where he was required to relinquish information about his subordinates, superiors, and peers that the KGB would be proud of. He couldn't sleep for a week, until he called me and asked me what to do. I told him to give only factual and positive information, and to steer clear of anything that could be detrimental to another person's reputation or livelihood in the slightest way.

The Chofetz Chaim writes that one is better advised to forfeit all his or her worldly possessions, rather than utter one word of slander against another person.

The Bolshevik-like system of the "360 Evaluation" is both immoral and a negation of Jewish law. The juxtaposition of high tech and low ethics is just another symptom of a decadent society. Some might say, "back to the drawing board"; better yet, back to the Gemorra. Intel and Microsoft have a lot to learn from Chovos Halevavos and Mesillos Yesharim.