I recently learnt a core idea about Rosh Hashanah and its relation to forgiveness of error.

It was in the first lecture of Rabbi Ezra Bick’s 13 middot lectures on KMTT. Worth learning so you don’t mindlessly say them when the day comes or be bored in shul.

Essentially he asks, ‘How can it be that just by saying the 13 middot we are assured of being forgiven?’

The answer is deep, but perhaps I can distill it to this: There’s G-d. Then there’s the Existence It created. The deal made after the golden calf incident is that whenever we creatures in Existence recognise that G-d is all the 13 attributes (greater elaboration needed on that point), then we merit to be forgiven.

In terms of Rosh Hashanah. Yes, G-d is G-d without creation ever having been. But G-d, after creation, now that Existence is formed, in this setup, for G-d to be King of Existence, those beings with free will are required to accept Him as King. This is Rosh Hashanah. At an earthly king’s coronation, when the crown is lowered onto his head and the people shout ‘long live the king’ – at which point is he king? It’s the statement by the people that makes him king over them, not the crown. No King without a people. (And no people without a King – things get Machiavellian rather quickly)

That’s Rosh Hashanah. And the deal is that our errors are forgiven when we choose to establish G-d over us, because It is the One able to forgive. This is why the power to forgive, we are told, rests with G-d, and not indirectly via other means such as angels.

This is a very powerful idea – and as Rabbi Bick points out, is a philosopher’s playground. “I thought G-d was Perfect?”. The best answer to this I’ve had is that G-d without Existence is Perfect (you can’t really say ‘before’ Existence as it includes time – how to account for one state before another is a separate discussion). G-d with Existence is still Perfect, but the setup is now different. G-d partners with us for whatever reason, to complete the world, and while Its essential Perfection is recognised necessarily, Its apparent, manifested perfection is made dependent on creatures with free will.

Another area: One needs two men to say kiddush together (usually achieved at synagogue) because, like witnessing the new moon, this is testimony and the law for testimony requires two. Testimony of what, exactly? it is said that if one says vayechulu in kiddush on a Friday night, with three kavvanot (intentions) beheld in our thoughts (that G-d exists, that It created Existence, that It sustains Existence with Hessed [which is defined loosely as 'undeserved freebies of goodness']), then one’s errors are wiped clean.

Can you see the connection between the two concepts, now?

Rabbi,

I agree with you. But we talk of the need for leadership. How can we hope to be at the head and not the tail when almost all Gedolei Yisrael remain utterly silent instead of consistently and firmly denouncing devastating chilulei Hashem emanating from within our Torah world?
 
We need religious leadership because they are ostensibly attuned to the Ultimate, Absolute Authority.
But how can anyone look to them if, because of their silence, one can’t bear to see their face?
 
I grew up secular. I know how they think: Zu Torah?
 
How do we solve this? Each Rosh Hashana we are all more demoralised than the last. Literally – de-moral-ised.
 
Shabbath Shalom.

While I appreciate this man’s position suggesting New York can afford to wait to build the proposed Islamic centre/mosque near ground zero until the time “dhimmis” (i.e. Jews and Christians as second class citizens in Muslim lands) are able to build their places of worship in countries like Saudi Arabia, this static snap to the Reuter’s video link I stumbled across recently does not present your average person that would suggest building a synagogue in Mecca. And while we’re on topic – apparently the ‘mosque’ at the Pentagon is actually an interdenominational chapel that switches around multiple times a day to handle different prayer services -if so, those on the left rabidly, mindlessly, and insensitively bowing to the god of unconditional freedom and tolerance cannot use that to say it’s been done. Further, I’d welcome any bikie mates of this guy that wants to hold up an additional placard clarifying that we’d like to be able to build said places of worship above ground and/or taller than any nearby mosque if we so desire, as this too is one of the restrictions typically placed on dhimmis.

Examples of Islam that apply such restrictions have a serious inferiority complex. Or do they?

In Judaism there are restrictions placed on certain non-Jewish members of society in terms of their rights. An idol worshipper does not have the same religious freedoms as a Jew. Would this extend today to Muslims and Christians? For more, see Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm’s talk on www.YUtorah.org on how Halacha views Islam and Christianity. Of great interest is how Maimonides viewed the two also. In short, of the three elements of faith from which his 13 are derived (1: belief in one infinite G-d, 2: belief in mesorah/tradition/Torah from G-d to Moses to us being accurate, and 3: resurrection/Messiah etc) one is deemed to have screwed up #1, and the other, #2. I’ll let you guess which one’s which.

Do we, too, have an inferiority complex? What would we have to fear? Certainly there is the great concern that the pagan practices that were so abhorrent to G-d would be committed by Jews and make them worthy of expulsion. Any such practices were to be eradicated from our midst (in Israel). If so, it makes sense to deny pagans/polytheists from running around doing their thing in Israel because it would be detrimental to the integrity of a monotheistic society. What qualifies? Where is the line drawn between acceptable non-Jewish practice in a Torah-ideal Israel (whatever that is) and that which is not?

All the Empire soldiers were dressed like space-age Nazis and had British accents! All the good guys (with the exception of Ben Kenobi who got a pass because he was old, stuck out in the desert and seemingly harmless) had American accents.

Glad to see it’s not only me who recognises it. Caricatures of Muslims was also wearing thin. I’ve become a lot more discerning in Muslim villains. I’ve never seen a Sufi assassinate people with his clothing as he dances, for instance. And most Shiite and Sunni don’t head butt with hijabs or strike people with rolled up prayer mats either. It’s a nonsense.

But - is there a harbouring of ideology that would be seen as a poison to the West (or an elixir?) I don’t feel this has been adequately explored in our very uncomplicated Western media industry, including Hollywood.

The Western world has gone through the enlightenment, which means it has a natural leaning towards science and reason and expects to resolve disputes with words and economics. This of course didn’t stop, for example, the Cold War, or WWII, where professors perverted their science for nefarious purpose, instead of using reason to stand up to uncalled-for prejudice. But here: good people have to do nothing for evil to triumph.

Does the same exist in a wholly different culture that did not, by and large, and has not in many respects to date, experienced such an enlightenment shift in thinking? The biggest mistake the West continues to make is to approach the Islamic world with an expectation of a shared mindset cultivated over the past few hundred years. This just does not exist. You can’t verbally and/or economically solve disputes with people whose religion and culture, according to their interpretation, demands violent conflict resolution.

Islamism has, as we’ve seen, a great potential to turn into what we perceive as pure evil, but a villain that shows hundreds of years of history and ideology is difficult to squeeze into a single movie. I think we need a trilogy that shows the variation in Islam’s moral produce and its plethora of responses to the West. Then, all well and good to cast one as the bad guy (as one might use Alan Rickman for a German terrorist), but show some depth, man.

Navigating between what is important and what’s not can be a life mission in itself, unfortunately, and we crave the rare, bold guide who will be a Maimonides, stand up against a host of hundreds and provide clarity.

But with all that in mind, consider this: how useful is an instrument unless it’s grasped?

If you have a ball, a rolling pin, anything- when left where it is, it’s freedom of movement is limited only by its form and any force acting against it such as the wind. It can technically go anywhere.

But a rolling pin is pretty pointless unless it’s used, and the only way to use it is to first pick it up. But by picking it up and holding it you are now limiting its movement.

Similarly, we need hardly be afraid of restrictions- a human being leads a purposeful life only through the restrictions one accepts on oneself. Only through self discipline can one have the opportunity to make a purposeful and positive impact. Judaism is one such formula to achieve this. But there are things it says you have to give up- after all, how much respect can you honestly have for a religion that let’s you get away with murder?

We passively place value on a warped form of freedom.

You can’t throw a dart at a target unless you first firmly restrict its movement between your fingers. How we view restrictions in Jewish living is ultimately in our hands alone.

Happy Hebrew month of Elul.

I wrote recently in a Facebook comment something put aptly, following the old logic line (all Fords are cars, all cars are not Fords): all Haredim are not stone throwers, but all stone throwers are Haredim (unless they’re radical Arabs).

Next there’s a rather sad fact about which Efraim Halevy reminds us during our rather dampened 3 weeks between 17th Tammuz and 9th Av.

“How sad it is to recall Mordechai Gur’s touching call “Temple Mount is in our hands,” uttered in the wake of bitter battles and such high casualty toll. The Mount remained in our hands for several hours only, and future generations will look into the reasons for handing it over to our enemies immediately after the victory, without getting anything in return and without eliciting any understanding for our right to the site. Indeed, people work in mysterious ways.”

Note that in 1924 Jewish claim to the site was even promoted by the local Muslims in a guide for tourists.

How I wish an Israel leader would stand up and with all the charisma to carry the nation across the world with him, engage in 10 minutes of actual truth telling and say, after this: “Now, we’re redrawing any negotiating lines in light of these documented facts that my predecessors have unfortunately ignored. Ignoring these has not made peacemaking easier or the route to security and quiet progress of societies quicker. With the world knowing we come unshakingly and unequivocally from this understanding, not the garbage they’ve been fed in their universities or that we’ve been feeding our own children – maliciously – in our schools while we prepare them for a peace of dreams – with the world knowing where we stand, we can finally pursue a just peace. We’re done. We’ve given it our best shot in that peace can force truth aside. It hasn’t worked. Don’t ask us about these questions from this day forward, because to negotiate on these is to negotiate truth. We will not pervert history for nothing.”

Perhaps that person is Mashiah. I hope we don’t have to wait for that.

My friend may have been right, but as I read what tripe bubbles up to become the headlines we read today, I wonder how we’ve gotten to this point, where I feel I need to fight fire with fire, as intellectually disingenuous as it may be.

Partly, there has been an exponential rise over the past decade in what marketers understand as ‘noise’ – stuff that takes your target audience’s attention away from your message (buy my ice cream). This has resulted in greater instances of shock marketing to achieve ‘cut through’ of said noise (buy my ice cream, b*&^h). This works wonders much of the time. It could explain why the esteemed gentleman quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald article mentioned chose to describe the situation in Australian academia using such a ridiculously charged and emotive term – it’s the only way he felt he would be heard.

And he may be right. Heck – it’s worked wonders for the Palestinian Arabs, whose ‘eternal’ claim to the land is virtually unquestioned even in supposedly highly educated countries, even by historians, even though the Palestinian Arabs’ own dialect does not include the requisite ‘P’ sound used in mouthing their own supposed peoples’ name. (Balestinian doesn’t have the same ring to it I guess.)

Which brings me to reason number two: we are increasingly numbed by this growing noise to the point of apathy, and desensitised to truths and the need to investigate claims to truths,  whether it comes in the form of advertisements or 500 different types of hand creams. We feel we just don’t have time to check it out.

We are time-poor and attention-deficient. Where before there were a few dozen channels (max), now with technology crossover (internet, digital, cable TV, mobile news) there are so many channels it might as well be considered infinite.

No one takes the time to question why Nablus was so named by the local Arab population (answer – because they could not pronounce the ‘P’ needed for Naples; the Romans had renamed Shechem ‘Naples’ after the eponymous city back home, as they also had renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina, and Judea “Palestina”, after a Cretan nation long dead and buried in history).

No one questions – because no one has the time or patience to question. And most historians don’t provide answers to questions no one is asking because it doesn’t sell – either books or prestige. And so the truth is buried, even if those answers are exactly what must be heard in order to foster intelligent discussion, opinion formation, and policy.

Shock language, in such a global society shifts the right to be considered as espousing truth discussion in favour of the accuser – instead of a reasoned debate, you get a marketplace of messages where the winning position is deemed as such based on where it sits on the decibel scale. The loudest scream is what tends to get absorbed by the masses. To a parent – the loudest screamer is simply the one that gets smacked first so that they’ll shut up – why aren’t we demanding the same treatment for adults?

And where does the media sit? In its effort to sell, instead of providing facts, it provides a reflection of mass sentiment. These in turn inform the masses until you have a population that knows nothing but lies and a media monstrosity that promotes only these. These, then, through polling, provide politicians (who obviously wish to be reelected) a perversion of facts on which to base their policy – on which they often feel they must base their policy. They get elected because the stance is popular, and then they have to follow through with their policies to the serious, life-threatening detriment of all. The flotilla could never have taken place, various wars could not have occurred, and Gilad Shalit would not still be imprisoned were it not for such spineless jellyfish.

I’m not simply talking about Israel here, I mean in virtually every avenue of discourse we are being led astray by leaders and social linchpins that lack the moral backbone to tell the inconvenient truths about various issues. Instead they have to spend their mental efforts trying to soak down messages characterised by words such as apartheid.

Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves To Death) was right. Welcome to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Whilst we were all supposedly worried about 1984, we’ve surrendered a life of meaning to the easier life of limitless pleasure – and the innocent be damned.

Identity Zionism and Crisis Zionism must coexist. For me, Identity Zionism is Judaism (unless I misunderstand him), whereby he quotes Max Nordau “We Zionists wear our Judaism as a badge of honour”. It just seems to me that regardless of halachah, being Jewish is Identity Zionism. And unless your beliefs about the State of Israel have been warped by the ultra religious right wing, your Jewish life will naturally guide you towards being a Zionist – it’s peppered constantly and heavily throughout our prayers.

“Identity Zionism must coexist with Crisis Zionism. Zionism is an affirmative response to assimilation and alienation not just a defensive response to anti-Semitism. Our Zionist dreams should tap into the power of the “us” in the age of the “I,” harness and hone idealism in an age of materialism, deploying Jewish values, Jewish history, Jewish community, and the Jewish homeland in the fight for meaning in a world that often makes people feel aimless and adrift. The Zionist movement should provide an educational framework, an ideological structure, and a vehicle for action. This vision of “Big Tent Zionism” stretching left to right is more sweeping than the latest “Hasbara” campaign.”

Defending Israel alone is not true Zionism. First you have to care about Jews and what and who we are as a people – what we stand for, our message amongst the nations – before you care about building and defending a state for this people. We’ve lost that. We appear to have stopped educating our children like that. Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews.

Part of it seems to be our concern that our kids will turn out more interested in our religion (or leading a religious life) than we are. And we all know where that leads: haredi quasi-Judaism. I’d be afraid of that too. But the nationalist religious Zionist voice has been overshadowed by the anti-intellectualist, reactionary and unattractive illegitimate child of Rabbinic Judaism. Where the latter was brought into play to save Judaism (washing hands as we do is zecher leMikdash, to remember that the priests used to do so in the Temple), the insular ultra-right feels that its mission is to save Rabbinic Judaism. But again, this is probably only one ingredient as to why we don’t encourage the next generation to be interested in Judaism as part of their Zionism. Why we don’t want them to start wearing Judaism as a badge on their Zionist clothes. All that’s left then is “Crisis Zionism”, and that’s got to be reversed. It’s not brainwashing, it’s education – fine line though there is.

Troy discusses WZO ideally issuing “Klal Yisrael Impact Statements” alerting us to those people and those instances where they cross lines and hurt us.

“Delegates should discuss initiatives to determine just what “red lines” supporters of Israel should voluntarily agree not to cross in political debate, and just what blue and white lines we should respect, what common ideas unite us. Delegates should demand that the Israeli education system improve overall and start teaching about Diaspora and Zionist values to enhance Jewish peoplehood.”

This sounds familiar to me in that I wrote about it the other day.

“The Zionist movement was established by Theodor Herzl to offer an answer to the Jewish question. That need remain our objective today. But if the WZO is to remain significant and relevant, we must come to recognize that the Jewish question has changed – and so, too, must the way we answer it. Both in content and form.

With all our efforts to respond effectively to the flotilla disaster earlier this month, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were there first, communicating with hundreds of thousands of young Jews in a language many of us have yet to learn.”

I think Zionism at its simplest had, like any movement has as its essence, the intent to change the status quo. Initially, the desired change was from a world where Jews were homeless and unprotected to a world where we are (I guess, relatively) safe from persecution and able to pursue a separate destiny. In a word: nationalism.

Now that Jewish nationalism has successfully culminated in a stellar Jewish state, we need to redefine the change that Zionism is there to make. The issue is partly marketing, partly sociology. Youth tend to have a drive (and certainly have more time with which to devote) to change their world, if only they can feel strongly enough for a cause. Successful causes lately include global warming or more broadly environmentalism, desire for political change within a country seems quite consistently popular, and, with increasing success in a warped world, the desire to radically improve the perceived (and in many cases very real) situation faced daily by Palestinian Arabs – unfortunately increasingly at the express cost of Jews both within Israel and without, whether this is vocalised or not.

That’s the sociological aspect. Now for the marketing. It could be that what is termed a negative halo-effect has attached itself to word ‘Zionism’ and all its related offshoots to greater or lesser extents. Vegemite dumped the ’2.0′ off its label as far as I’m aware, and, earlier, Coke returned to ’Classic Coke’ – aware of the brand damage the concept ‘new recipe’ had wrought, it was not enough to come out with a ‘new new recipe’ but rather reinforce what was: the original.

Zionism has perhaps lost its zing because the baggage it retains, conceptually, is that of creating a Jewish state. Well, Baruch Hashem, today that baggage is superfluous. But if this is true, we cannot expect the target audience - potentially zealous Jewish youth – to get excited about it. 

If we re-brand Zionism as ‘building the Jewish state’, as many Jewish fundraising organisations tout as their aim – yes, there’s no doubt that building is required, but looking around Tel Aviv and Azrieli Towers etc, there doesn’t seem to be that same pressing desparation. Why not give the money over to the building or maintenance of a school in Idaho or Adelaide – which has an equal or comparable sense of urgency about it?

The trick is, then, if it’s not building physically with bricks and mortar, but an idea, a way of thinking – well we can do that outside Israel. Here we have to be careful because we cannot use the term Zionism. To do so, that would imply that Israel as a country is unnecessary to the achievement of our aims. “To Change the World to Bring About the Acceptance of Ethical Monotheism”, whilst brilliant, cannot have Zionism attached. Noble as it is, we would need to be convinced why Israel is the only place this could be achieved. It’s not enough that Israel is the extremely most ideal place to do it – the youth will see right through that.

We have to work through this quickly, lest our youth become afflicted with a spiritual and emotional malady that brings them to question the legitimacy of Israel – as mentioned in Breakstone’s piece. Then we may be faced with a generation, G-d forbid, of ill-informed Jewish kids whose passionate drive is directed towards the exact opposite of Zionism’s original goals.