"In a statement to Iran's official IRIB radio, the group called for "the disintegration of the Zionist regime" and defended the Iranian president, saying that it "is a dangerous deviation to pretend that the Iranian president is an anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic personality."
They added that they were "upset about the recent ploys, propaganda and tensions which have been created by the West regarding the statements of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about a world free of Zionism, since this is nothing more than wishing for a better world dominated by peace and calm."
On Sunday, members of the delegation, headed by Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, met with Iranian Vice-President Ahmad Moussavi, who also chairs the Iranian Committee in Support of the Palestinian Revolution.
At the meeting, according to the Iranian news agency IRNA, Weiss "praised the 'enlightening' statements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about the Holocaust and said the establishment of a Zionist government and occupation of Palestine are contrary to the injunctions of Judaism."
May Weiss be eaten by pigs.
ReplyDeleteMaybe pigs don't do the cannibal thing?
we should be saddened by their misguidedness, but not reciprocate any hate; for all of OUR dysfunction, we are all one body.
ReplyDeleteTheir theological premise is understandable if one were to consider: how would it be if "religiously observant" Jews legally took control of a municipality, and forcefully- and successfully- instituted, mandated, and enforced Shabbos observance on the entire general population. If they made it illegal for a Jew to be served in a non-kosher restaurant. Everybody okay with that? Isn't that what Jews are supposed to be doing anyways? The answer is yes, but not by force. Not even coercion.
Every mitzvah in the Torah possesses its own dynamic, but settling and establishing Eretz Yisrael is one mitzvah, "like" Shabbos or any other. They believe, and there are legitimate sources among some of the teachings of Chazal (our Sages of blessed memory) that we must submit to the rule of the nations of the world in order to extricate and play out our sentence of golus (exile), i.e. it is beyond our rights to force this mitzvah.
So where is the fault in their conclusions, then? P'kuach Nefesh- the saving of (Jewish) lives. With the exceptions of the three cardinal sins/capital offenses of murder, idolatry, and bestiality-male homosexuality-adultery-incest, all other mitzvos, including the paramount mitzvah of Shabbos, are to be cast aside for the saving of a Jewish life.
If dismantling the Jewish State, exiling most of the yidden, and leaving the rest to live as dhimmis under Arab/Moslem rule would save Jewish lives, there MIGHT be room to argue, issues of national pride and self-respect aside.
But such a scenario is ludicrous at best, and as reality exists in this world, giving in to the arabs and giving up Jewish land will cost Jewish lives; pure and simple, bottom line. This is the consideration under which all Jews- whatever else their religious, philosophical, or political considerations may be- must support the expansionist and nationalistic goals of a Jewish State. We must realize our potential as a civilization; we cannot continue just surviving.
Second point: When Hashem clearly grants us victories and miracles, people must recognize that it does not emanate from "the other side." And that which Hashem gives to the Jewish People, no one has a right to give away.
Point three: their difficulty in accepting the establishment of a pre-Messianic Jewish State may be understandable, but here's where we get philosophical.
Hashem's ways are so mysterious and no one's thoughts and no group of people's thoughts can even approach Him. Yes, we know His Will through His Torah. When we delve into the logic of the Talmud, study the inner dimensions of Chasidus, understand from the Chumash (Five Books of Moses) what a thief pays in restitution for the theft of a sheep vs. a bull, our intellect literally unites with the Divine Intellect. As it says in Micah 7:20 "You grant Truth to Jacob,..." We can never really and objectively know what truth is on our own, it's a gift from Hashem. But after decades of studying both the obvious and intricate aspects of the Torah that Hashem gave us, and availing ourselves of the accrued knowledge of all the Sages who've preceded us, how much closer do we come to REALLY knowing Hashem in comparison to his infiniteness? I don't want to discourage anyone reading this from embarking on the path of knowledge for as it says in Ethics of the Fathers, "It is not for you to finish the task, neither are you free from working on it."
But my point is this- to NK- for all the legitimate Truth Hashem gave us in His Torah, do we know why the Holocaust had to happen? Do we know why our DNA needed to be structured the way it is? Does anyone know what purpose there is in G-d's creation of starfish miles beneath the ocean's surface where no sunlight reaches at all and they and the other local species survive solely on deep, thermal vents? Do we understand why the cosmos need to be so vast? How could Hashem command the prophet Hoshea to marry and bear children with a harlot? Why did Yehoshua bin Nun (Joshua)'s wife had to have been a prostitute? Why were Rivkah (Rebeccah), Rochel (Rachel), and Leah born to such wicked families. The list of utterly un-understandable phenomenon goes on in Scripture, nature, .....and history; we simply cannot understand or even phathom so much of G-d's plan, that's the answer to NK. Yes, the establishment of a pre-Messianic Jewish State is anathema to them, and incompatible with their understanding of Hashem's ways, but then who of us, even among our prophets, even Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses) can really understand what Hashem is really up to and all about.
They have a website, nkusa.org, where you can contact them. (Actually, I should probably send these thoughts to them.) Just like Lubavitcher sh'luchim (emissaries) don't despair of stemming the tide of Jewish assimilation; they do every bit of good they can and get others to do, they mention every bit of Torah and chizuk (strenth), and a word of Torah to one whom others might consider "hopelessly frei" one never knows when a seed can develope (for good or, G-d forbid, for evil).
We should establish dialogue with them. No Jew should ever be considered beyond repair- Moshe never gave up on us for all of our rude bitching in the Wilderness. This is symptomatic of a problem that WE have, a spiritual ailment, amputation should always be considered an unthinkable last resort.
May all of Israel have peace and unity.