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The presentation of the historic and justified counter-claim of the over six million Jews who live in their homeland and to Israel’s right to exist is given short-shrift in the world, if not even ignored completely. The bias against Israel and the Jewish people in the media such as CNN, BBC, the New York Times and the other major media outlets is so ingrained that it has become part of their subconscious so that they are amazed and shocked and are in denial when this bias is sometimes and somehow actually brought to their attention.
There are almost never any positive articles or reporting about Israel and its people and accomplishments. Terrorists are merely militants and victims somehow always have it coming to them. Half of the European Jews have suffered overt anti-Semitism and the other half are too fearful to acknowledge that Europe does not really enjoy their presence within their sanctimoniously enlightened societies.
Bluntly put, it is pretty lonely and even nasty to be a Jew in Europe today. The international minister of South Africa weeps that she cannot sleep at night after seeing a map of Palestine. She is certainly not concerned about Israel and Jerusalem, thereby fulfilling the doleful observation of the ancient Jewish prophet.Our welfare is not on the agenda of the world’s manifold do-gooders.
But this disdainful attitude, towards the welfare of the State of Israel and thus towards the Jews who live there, exists in the Jewish world as well. I have recently returned from an extended visitto Brazil and the United States. I may now be oversensitive to all of these matters – living in Jerusalem for seventeen years can make you oversensitive to many things – but I was and am deeply troubled by the fact that Israel is not really on anybody’s radar screen.
Naturally there is support for Israel in times of real crisis but in everyday Jewish life it does not register. To the alienated and assimilated Jewish world, which unfortunately is large in numbers, wealth and influence, Israel is somewhat of an embarrassment. It is too Jewish, too traditional, too conservative, too provincial and parochial for their broad, universal, liberal, hedonistic, pacifist worldview.
In the Orthodox world there are many motives advanced towards explaining this apathy within American religious Jewry towards Israel. These motives range from the fact that Israel is not religious enough (though America is?) to financial and educational difficulties.
Aliyah is therefore not an option for most religious American Jews and since that is the case, there exists a feeling that one would be somehow hypocritical to inject too much Israel consciousness into one’s everyday personal and communal life.
It is embarrassing to them as well to recite aprayer for Israel intheir Sabbath service. Somehow it is preferable to ignore its existence - and ignoring its existence has taken on an aura of religious piety amongst many otherwise fine observant and very loyal Jews.
I think that the basic problem that underlies much of this apathetic attitude towards Israel is that according to many Israel should never have happened. That was the decree and stated opinion of many – but not all - great rabbinic leaders of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Eastern Europe. It is still anathema to many that one should now say a century later that perhaps they were mistaken.
So, one must now pretend that it never really did happen or that somehow its existence is not really central to Jewish life, present or future. In the eyes of many, Israel is not a salvation for the Jewish people in our time, saving the remnants of the Holocaust and gathering in the exiles of the Jewish world, but is rather,somehow,the cause of the Holocaust and of our current troubles.
This skewed view of things, divorced from historical fact and logical reason, pervades sections of the religious world in America - and even here in Israel. That is why most children attending American Jewish day schools, yeshivot and seminaries are ignorant not only of Israel but of Hebrew, the Prophets, and Jewish history.
Rather, we have created for our coming generation a fanciful narrative of what once was and of what is supposed to now be.There is great danger in being an irrational people in a dangerous, inimical rational world. The prophets of Israel have warned us about this as well.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 9 - "Seeing is Believing" (parag. 21-30)
These paragraphs elaborate on the theme that seeing and knowing is better than any attempt to prove logically, and begins explaining the difference between Israel and gentiles.
Ein Aya Various Universal Stages of the Geula Process
Rav Kook examines the various stages of redemption, explaining how (in addition to the obvious oft-mentioned stages of ingathering the exiles, reviving the Hebrew language, army, state etc.) the messianic dream of world prosperity, the State of Israel and world unity can and are realistically and logically gradually coming true.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 8- "Answering Questions on the Kuzari's Proof from Mass Revelation
How do we know that the "claim" of mass revelation to 2,000,000 witnesses at Mt. Sinai is really true? This important class answers all of the questions skeptics ask about this claim of the Kuzari.
Ein Aya Armies Still Necessary for Balance & the War Against Wars
Rav Kook explains why the world was originally divided into the various seemingly contradicting ideologies and cultures, in order to develop each one respectively. Swords or armies symbolize how each respective ideology defends themselves, as well as deters their opposing ideologies and cultures. On the other hand, the messianic era will be one of peace, and Rav Kook explains the transition to that stage, which mankind is already undergoing.
The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
