MEN: Asher ben Malka, Avraham ben Devorah, Zvi Yechezkel ben Leah, Shalom Charles ben Gracia, Bentzion Michael ben Chaya Zipporah, Chai Zvi Moshe ben Miriam Rachel, Naphtali Moshe ben Tziporah, Chanan ben Shlomit, Yoel ben Esther, Avraham Yehida ben Esther, Zev ben Rachel, Adin Yisrael ben Sarah, Yehonatan ben Malka, Aharon ben Rishol, Yacov David ben Gittel Chaya, Yosef Moshe ben Chaya, David Zvi ben Sara Leah
The son of Ephraim Shore, who directs the Honest Reporting organization, was involved in a serious car accident. He asked people to Daven for YAAKOV BEN ESTHER for the next 72 hours.
WOMEN: Keren Neshama bas Esther Ruth, Chaya Melecha Rachel bas Baila Alta, Zviah Simcha bas Devorah Yached, Bryna bas Gina Sarah, Rachel bas Chana, Fiege Rachel R
Remember that if there is a problem reading something for those who receive this directly you can try: www.rabbipauli.blogspot.com
The Truth about the Kabbalah Center and “Dr.”??? Rabbi ??? http://freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/k/kabbalah/#truth
While not claiming to be the Kabbalah the following site does help improve the soul: http://revealingthesoul.com/?=672
Parsha Bamidbar
Hidden messages in Sefer Bamidbar:
Hillel says, “One should be like the students of Aaron HaCohain Rodef (pursue) Shalom (meaning peace here) v’ ohave (and love) Shalom.
2) Moshe had the powers of a prophet and was a king and yet he allowed democratic speech. Each rebellion and test against HASHEM was with the mumbling. Where it be at Mariba, with the lack of meat, golden calf, the spies, Korach and more each time the people had a voice and were individual in their actions.
3) The 12 Tribes were autonomous and yet part of a central leadership of the Nation.
4) Quality and limited quantity. Approximately 600,000 foot soldiers of Yisrael were destined to enter the land of Yisrael. This quantity is counted at the beginning and at the end of our Sefer. The difference between the original people at the beginning and the people destined to enter at the end was quality. Those in the beginning were boors and Am HaAretz in their education coming from slavery. They were not educated and they had never tasted freedom both education and freedom were concepts that they had no guidance on how to handle. Those at the end were educated between 20 to 40 years in the desert and were used to the discipline of Mitzvos.
1:1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying: 2 'Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, by their polls; 3 from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: ye shall number them by their hosts, even thou and Aaron. 4 And with you there shall be a man of every tribe, every one head of his fathers' house.
The freed slaves were now to be drafted into an Army to liberate the land from the Canaanites. Had they gone directly and depended only on HASHEM things would have been easy for them. However, when they depended on the information of the spies they lost it all.
5 And these are the names of the men that shall stand with you: of Reuben, Elizur the son of Shedeur. 6 Of Simeon, Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai. 7 Of Judah, Nahshon the son of Amminadab. 8 Of Issachar, Nethanel the son of Zuar. 9 Of Zebulun, Eliab the son of Helon. 10 Of the children of Joseph: of Ephraim, Elishama the son of Ammihud; of Manasseh, Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur. 11 Of Benjamin, Abidan the son of Gideoni. 12 Of Dan, Ahiezer the son of Ammishaddai. 13 Of Asher, Pagiel the son of Ochran. 14 Of Gad, Eliasaph the son of Deuel. 15 Of Naphtali, Ahira the son of Enan.' 16 These were the elect of the congregation, the princes of the tribes of their fathers; they were the heads of the thousands of Israel. 17 And Moses and Aaron took these men that are pointed out by name. 18 And they assembled all the congregation together on the first day of the second month, and they declared their pedigrees after their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, by their polls. 19 As the LORD commanded Moses, so did he number them in the wilderness of Sinai.
These individuals were more learned and wiser than the others of their tribes and commanded to lead. Now in 1:19 polls are staffs and upon the poll or staff or another staff there might be the flags mentioned. There was the flag of each tribe and the flag of each quarter of the army Reuven, Yehuda, Ephraim, and Dan. In previous issues I explained the angels guarding the encampment. The word is translated in verse 52 as standard. For a better idea say the prayer before going to bed at night and face north. On your right hand will be the Machane Yehuda and the Angel Michael etc. as described below and in the prayers. I dislike repeating myself each year so I am giving out homework to those who want to figure it out.
20 And the children of Reuben, Israel's first-born, their generations, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, by their polls, every male from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war; … 42 Of the children of Naphtali, their generations, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war;
The Parsha is long and next week with the princes is the longest Parsha for the Repeats. However, each member of the Bnei Yisrael and every Tribe is very important before HASHEM.
44 These are those that were numbered, which Moses and Aaron numbered, and the princes of Israel, being twelve men; they were each one for his fathers' house. 45 And all those that were numbered of the children of Israel by their fathers' houses, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel; 46 even all those that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty. 47 But the Levites after the tribe of their fathers were not numbered among them.
600,000 is a quantity army and formidable even today all the more so then. The Leviim and Cohanim were set before HASHEM and therefore not counted.
… 52 And the children of Israel shall pitch their tents, every man with his own camp, and every man with his own standard, according to their hosts. 53 But the Levites shall pitch round about the tabernacle of the testimony, that there be no wrath upon the congregation of the children of Israel; and the Levites shall keep the charge of the tabernacle of the testimony.' 54 Thus did the children of Israel; according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did they.
In the desert, the Bnei Yisrael obeyed the commands of Moshe but as I wrote in the introduction rebelled here and there from time to time but not against the Mitzvos with the exception of the story of the golden calf.
2:1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying: 2 'The children of Israel shall pitch by their fathers' houses; every man with his own standard, according to the ensigns; a good way off shall they pitch round about the tent of meeting.
We learn here that the pitching of the tent was to be in the general direction of the Ohel Moed (Tent of Meeting). The tents never faced one another so as not to let other peep in. There must have been some clever angling in fields that the tents were placed.
… 32 These are they that were numbered of the children of Israel by their fathers' houses; all that were numbered of the camps according to their hosts were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty. 33 But the Levites were not numbered among the children of Israel; as the LORD commanded Moses. 34 Thus did the children of Israel: according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so they pitched by their standards, and so they set forward, each one according to its families, and according to its fathers' houses.
3:1 Now these are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day that the LORD spoke with Moses in mount Sinai. 2 And these are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the first-born, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 3 These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the priests that were anointed, whom he consecrated to minister in the priest's office. 4 And Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD, when they offered strange fire before the LORD, in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children; and Eleazar and Ithamar ministered in the priest's office in the presence of Aaron their father.
The above in the signaling out of the Kahuna and below is the tripe of Levi.
5 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 6 'Bring the tribe of Levi near, and set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister unto him. 7 And they shall keep his charge, and the charge of the whole congregation before the tent of meeting, to do the service of the tabernacle. 8 And they shall keep all the furniture of the tent of meeting, and the charge of the children of Israel, to do the service of the tabernacle. 9 And thou shalt give the Levites unto Aaron and to his sons; they are wholly given unto him from the children of Israel. 10 And thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons, that they may keep their priesthood; and the common man that draws nigh shall be put to death.'
11 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 12 'And I, behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of every first-born that opens the womb among the children of Israel; and the Levites shall be Mine; 13 for all the first-born are Mine: on the day that I smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto Me all the first-born in Israel, both man and beast, Mine they shall be: I am the LORD.'
The sanctification of the first born followed by the census of the Leviim and the redemption for the first born each by a Levi until some were left over and had to redeem themselves by 5 silver Shekels.
My Return to Judaism Part 3
We each have our ups and downs and no path is completely smooth. Around Elul 5726, Howard took me to meet his mother. She did not keep kosher in the sense I do today but she was the most religious person whom I had come in contact with at the time. She only had one set of pots but cooked the meat and milk dishes separately and I believe it was kosher meat. She would light Shabbos candles each week. For me that was a giant step above where I had been all my life! She told me to read the Bible and pray by myself. Though May she worked on me to go get a kosher Bar Mitzvah with an Orthodox Rabbi. She contact Rabbi Klayman (perhaps with a C) and made an appointment for me to see him. I already wrote about seeing Tephillin for the first time during the Six Day War and obtaining my first Siddur.
The six day war broke out after my last finals of my Sophomore year and I went to City College that day to check my grades and meet up with my friend Joel Klein. (I wonder now if he is the head of the NYC Board of Education and allowed a special Arabic/Moslem School in the Public School System a few years ago.) As we got off at 42nd St to head to the Port Authority Terminal to take the Warwick Bus Line to Greenwood Lake New York for Astronomy Observing and just relaxing, we encountered a bunch of Jewish Youths collecting money for Israel. He gave $5 which was his week’s allowance and I gave $1 which was my week’s allowance. I mention this to show that charity is relative to the donor.
We rode up to the Lake and each night on the news watched the victories of Israel against the three surrounding nations. Meantime back in Israel some towns were being shelled by Yarden especially areas of Yerushalayim like Kiriat Zands where a shell did not explode near a natural gas canister. The Israelis were not told of the victories and the press in Israel was silent not like today. On the day that Yerushalayim was liberated, I saw the strangest sight that angered me. You see I had friends in the army and army reserves and was at that time applying for or thinking of applying for the diesel submarine Navy Reserve Officer Training Course. In the end I did not go because they would not guarantee my participating as an officer candidate so I figured that I would wait until I graduated and try for an aircraft carrier or the air force. Here I had donated a week’s allowance and the US Army did not have a communication device on the left hand and on the head above the middle of the forehead and yet ‘poor’ Israel had it for all the soldiers at the wall and then even a stranger thing happened the fellows started bowing down (genuflecting) to this wall. I mentioned this to Joel as I knew that he had been educated much better than I in Judaism. He told me the black boxes were not army communication devices but Tephillin and the wall was the wall of the Temple and the soldiers were praying that way to G-D. (Wow what a relief and double wow how ignorant I had been of my own people and relgion.)
I met the Rabbi in Elul and he took me to buy a pair of Tephillin. It was a very small pair and cost only $54 and I bought the Hertz Chumash and Code of Jewish Law. He lent me a book by Rabbi Avraham Carmel “How Strange was my Path” and another book with the story of the boy who whistled on Yom Kippur – I think it was called “The Torah as our Guide” and as I read it on that Yom Kippur 5728, I cried like a baby as that boy was me. I began putting on Tephillin and I praying part of the morning service each day at home in English. On the 50th day after putting on Tephillin my prayers were really answered. There was a meeting with three Astronauts and Astronomers. All my life I wanted to be a professional Astronomer and here I was going to meet with Dr. Fred Whipple of the Smithsonian. (Dr. Whipple died about a year ago from the original posting at the age of 98. November 5, 1906–August 30, 2004) I showed him my meteor research. He invited me to come for a job interview. That was G-D’s way of repaying me in this world and getting the astronomy out of my blood so that I could get to real work for the next not only for myself but for others.
The year went by quickly and an old friend from the boy scouts named Sivan helped me with the blessings for the Haftorah for my Bar Mitzvah and although I could only read nicely Chapter 2 of Yehoshua, the people in Schul were impressed by me and that I was a returnee to Judaism. Around Sukkos, I had begun praying in the local Conservative Schul called the “Sunnyside Jewish Center” and began following the prayers. It was far from ideal. 15 and 16 year old girls would Daven next to the tall thin 20 year old fellow. A flock of sheep and I was basically the only Ram around. I tried my best to concentrate on my prayers Shabbos morning as most of the other times there was only men. In my spare time, I was reading the “Gates of Repentance”, “Path of the Just”, and “Ways of the Righteous”. IN THOSE DAYS OF BEING NEW TO JUDAISM AND PRAYING EACH WORD WITH INTENT IN ENGLISH IT WAS HARDEST OF ALL ON THOSE SHABBOSOS WITH FEMALE DISTRACTION NEXT TO ME. This is perhaps one of the greatest reasons that I am against this mixed prayers. When on field trips years later with the men praying in front of the women or the women meters away on the side, the distraction was not there. At home my wife is a full partner and advisor but at prayer we go our separate ways and that is the best way to serve HASHEM. (If I want to sit together with my wife in mixed seating at a wedding or in a movie that is a different story but never ever at prayer.)
I began joining the Mincha / Maariv Minyan at work and during this time I met (now Rabbi) David Willig and others at the Jewish Lunch table on South Campus and somebody loaned me “Rejoice O’Youth” by Rabbi Avidor Miller (now of blessed memory). It took about 50 pages to knock evil or evolution by Darwin out of my head. Instead of a Random evolution, I see a master plan evolution by a CREATOR.
In early June 5728, I went up to Boston and rented a room in Cambridge, MA to work for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. I used to turn on and off the lights on Shabbos as I knew no better but I made Kiddush and did not work or travel. I had to come in for my Bar Mitzvah on Shabbos 21st and did not time my bus and subway to Brooklyn and came in a few minutes after sundown. I don’t recall if it was at this time or my second visit to Brooklyn that Howard convinced me to fly back to Boston and I took my first plane flight then.
I had one more relapse on Shabbos. I had always been curious to meet my European Family and Cousin Andre Horgen from France was passing through NY. I hitched a ride toward Greenwood Lake and got there a bit after sundown and the next day I traveled too. The only two times that I traveled since then was on border patrol in the army and once I had to take a girl who swallowed pills to the hospital on Shabbos – Pekuach Nefesh. Perhaps had I not met him and violated the Shabbos, things would have been different. As he married Christina, a non-Jew. I wonder to this day if I had guarded that Shabbos if I could have prevented it?
One of my friends was a ‘fanatic’ Chabad follower and he observed meticulously Shabbos. He told me that I should not turn on and off the lights on Shabbos. To check him out, I asked my more modern Jewish friend Myron if this is true and he told me yes. So from around Mar Cheshvan 5729, I became completely Shomer Shabbos. David Willig, another David and a nice girl named Suri encouraged me to try to join Yeshiva Haichal HaTorah. I went down for the Feb. Semester and was accepted on the grounds that I had no money, could help in the office, at Bingo, substitute teach, proctor exams etc.
I finally began learning Gemara and Mordechai Rubin introduced me to the Blackman Mishnayos which I still read to this day on my plane flights over and over again. I watched the Rabbis, learned the Shabbos Songs, began to give Drashos and learn from the CCNY library the Midrash Rabbah and bits of the Zohar (until I got learned enough to quit reading it for a while). The seeds had been planted now for what we call a Torah Yid.
I have already written about the last time I saw my father alive was when he brought me to the Yeshiva. I was on my own saying Kaddish and graduating from College. Since I had been dating and now it was time to get serious and build a family, that summer and fall I began looking for a wife. I also went down to the Bostoner Rebbe at that time and I think it was he who suggested Haichal HaTorah. Associating with both Litvak and Chassid, I was being to become a member of the Frum world but not good enough for a Shidduch with their daughters. Modern Orthodox was a bit too weak for me then as I was on an upswing. Eventually I placed Yiddishkeit above all else and married a girl with other problems. Eventually for the sake of my children and myself, I would have to divorce. This was one of the prices I had to pay for keeping myself from sin and not being able to wait until I was more learned. There were some close relatives and distant relatives of my Rosh Yeshiva whom I did date. One was cripple but that did not bother me but her personality was not exciting enough. Other I was dating when my first wife turned my head with her Yiddishkeit and beauty. Still I got some nice children out of it. My problem at the age of 22 is that I went for the outside package. A sadder and wiser me a bit older when for an inner package and the outside wrapping concerned me less when looking for a wife.
Day Three of Week 6: Tiferes of Yesod
38th Day of the Omer
Bonding needs to be not only loving but also compassionate, feeling your friend's pain and empathizing with him. Is my bonding conditional? Do I withdraw when I am uncomfortable with my friend's troubles?
Exercise for the day: Offer help and support in dealing with an ordeal of someone you have bonded with.
Day Four of Week 6: Netzach of Yesod
39th Day of the Omer
An essential component of bonding is its endurance. Its ability to withstand challenges and setbacks. Without endurance there is no chance to develop true bonding. Am I totally committed to the one I bond with? How much will I endure and how ready am I to fight to maintain this bond? Is the person I bond with aware of my devotion?
Exercise for the day: Demonstrate the endurance level of your bonding by confronting a challenge that obstructs the bond.
Day Five of Week 6: Hod of Yesod
40th Day of the Omer
Humility is crucial in healthy bonding. Arrogance divides people. Preoccupation with your own desires and needs separates you from others. Humility allows you to appreciate another person and bond with him. Bonding that is just an extension of your own needs is only bonding tighter with yourself. Healthy bonding is the union of two distinct people, with independent personalities, who join for a higher purpose than satisfying their own needs.
True humility comes from recognizing and acknowledging G-d in your life. Am I aware of the third partner - G-d - in bonding? And that this partner gives me the capacity to unite with another, despite our distinctions.
Exercise for the day: When praying acknowledge G-d specifically for helping you bond with others.
Day Six of Week 6: Yesod of Yesod
41st Day of the Omer
Examine the bonding aspect of bonding. The forms it takes and its level of expression. Every person needs and has the capacity to bond with other people, with significant undertakings and with meaningful experiences.
Do I have difficulty bonding? Is the difficulty in all areas or only in certain ones? Do I bond easily with my job, but have trouble bonding with people? Or vice versa? Do I have problems bonding with special events in my life? Examine the reasons for not bonding. Is it because I am too critical and find fault in everything as an excuse for not bonding? Am I too locked in my own ways? Is my not bonding a result of discomfort with vulnerability? Have I been hurt in my past bonding experiences? Has my trust been abused? Is my fear of bonding a result of the deficient bonding I experienced as a child? To cultivate your capacity to bond, even if you have valid reasons to distrust, you must remember that G-d gave you a Divine soul that is nurturing and loving and you must learn to recognize the voice within, which will allow you to experience other people's souls and hearts. Then you can slowly drop your defenses when you recognize someone or something you can truly trust.
For bonding to be possible it must embody the other six aspects of bonding. Successful bonding must also include actualizing the bond in constructive deeds.
One additional point: Bonding breeds bonding. When you bond in one area of your life, it helps you bond in other areas.
Exercise for the day: Begin bonding with a new person or experience you love by committing designated time each day or week to spend together constructively.
Day Seven of Week 6: Malchus of Yesod
42nd Day of the Omer
Bonding must enhance a person's sovereignty. It should nurture and strengthen your own dignity and the dignity of the one you bond with. Does my bonding inhibit the expression of my personality and qualities? Does it overwhelm the one I bond with?
Exercise for the day: Emphasize and highlight the strengths of the one you bond with.
Day One of Week 7: Chessed of Malchus
43rd Day of the Omer
Week Seven - Malchus
Sovereignty - the last of the seven attributes - is different than the previous six. It is a state of being rather than an activity.
Leadership is a passive expression of human dignity which has nothing of its own except that which it receives from the other six emotions.
On the other hand, Malchus manifests and actualizes the character and majesty of the human spirit. It is the very fiber of what makes us human. When love, discipline, compassion, endurance and humility are properly channeled into the psyche through bonding - the result is Malchus. Bonding nurtures us and allows our sovereignty to surface and flourish.
Malchus is a sense of belonging. Knowing that you matter and that you make a difference. That you have the ability to be a proficient leader in your own right. It gives you independence and confidence. A feeling of certainty and authority. When a mother lovingly cradles her child in her hands and the child's eyes meet the mother's affectionate eyes, the child receives the message that I am wanted and needed in this world. I have a comfortable place where I will always be loved. I have nothing to fear. I feel like a king in my heart. This is Malchus, kingship.
Day One of Week 7: Chessed of Malchus
Healthy sovereignty is always kind and loving. An effective leader needs to be warm and considerate. Does my sovereignty make me more loving? Do I exercise my authority and leadership in a caring manner? Do I impose my authority on others?
Exercise for the day: Do something kind for your subordinates.
Day Two of Week 7: Gevurah of Malchus
44th Day of the Omer
Examine the discipline of your sovereignty and leadership. Although sovereignty is loving, it needs to be balanced with discipline. Effective leadership is built on authority and discipline.
There is another factor in the discipline of sovereignty: determining the area in which you have jurisdiction and authority. Do I recognize when I am not an authority? Do I exercise authority in unwarranted situations? Am I aware of my limitations as well as my strengths? Do I respect the authority of others? Dignity also needs discipline. A dignified person needs to have a degree of reserve.
Exercise for the day: Before taking an authoritative position on any given issue, pause and reflect if you have the right and the ability to exercise authority in this situation.
Halachos from Danny Shoemann
The Torah prohibits men from removing their Peiyot. The Peiyot-area is the hair in the triangular area from the top of the ear to the forehead to the bottom of the ear. According to some opinions even cutting the Peiyot very close to the skin with scissors is forbidden. The beard-area begins at the bottom of the ear where the Peiyot-area ends and includes the entire face. Men may not shave their beard with a razor. Even when using hair-removal cream on the beard-area men cannot use a blade or a knife; they should use a rounded spatula or other instrument that cannot cut. Women may not shave a man's beard or Peiyot for him either. Source: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 170:1-2
Of the 613 Mitzvos in the Torah is to pay wages on time as it says (in Devarim 24:15) בְּיוֹמוֹ תִתֵּן שְׂכָרוֹ - "on the same day you shall pay the worker's wage". If the job ended during the daytime and one delays payment past sunset, one has forfeited this Mitzva and also transgressed the prohibition of וְלֹא תָבוֹא עָלָיו הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ (ibid) - "and the sun should not set on the worker being unpaid". If the job ended during the night and one didn't pay the worker during that night, then one has forfeited this Mitzva and also transgressed the prohibition of לֹא תָלִין פְּעֻלַּת שָׂכִיר אִתְּךָ עַד בֹּקֶר - (Vayikra 19:13) - "do not keep the worker's wages until morning". Source: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 185:2
Yesterday we learned that there's a Mitzva to pay wages on time, and an Avaira to pay them late. The same applies to daily, weekly, monthly or yearly workers:
- If pay time arrives during the day, they must be paid before sunset
- If pay time arrives at night, they must be paid during that night
If one does not have the money to pay, one loses the Mitzva, but does not transgress. However, the correct thing to do is to borrow money so as to pay wages on time.
If the local custom is not to pay immediately, or the contract stipulates that pay day will be a few days after the job is completed (or until an invoice arrives), then one does not transgress if one waited, but one does lose the Mitzva of paying on the same day. Source: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 185:2-3
We learned that there's a Mitzva to pay wages on time, and an Avaira to pay them late. The same applies if one gave a garment to a tailor be mended, or a car to a mechanic be serviced, or any other item to any kind of worker to be fixed, and they returned the item - or you picked it up - during the day, they must be paid on that day. If it was returned - or you picked it up - during the night, they must be paid that same night. If they informed you that the item is ready, then you don't have to pay, as long as you have not picked it up - no matter how long it stays by them. Source: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 185:4 See Tehillim 116:14 and 18 about paying vows according to David HaMelech.
One of the differences between Yom Tov and Shabbat is the laws of lighting fire.
On Shabbat one may not light fires, nor extinguish them nor make them larger or smaller. Fires need to be lit before Shabbat and then leave it alone. On Yom Tov one may light a fire from an existing flame, if there's a need. One may also make the fire larger.
One may light a flame or make an existing flame larger for:
• Light, including "candle-lighting" if one didn't manage before Yom Tov.
• Cooking, baking or warming food
• Boiling water for drinking
• Keeping warm, if it's so cold that food starts to congeal
• Warming water to wash ones hands and face
One may not use matches nor a magnifying glass to light a fire on Yom Tov; one has to light the fire from an existing flame.
Source: Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 98:29, 30, 31
This week is Shabbat Mevorchim of Sivan; Rosh Chodesh will be on Friday in 9 days time Shabbat Shalom uMevorach - Danny
Thursday, 22 Iyar 5771 - 37th day of the Omer
Perkei Avos Chapter 5 Mishnayos 1 – 5
This Chapter is based on numbers and we start out with the number 10. This is one of the times when the self-explanation of the Mishnah is very clear. As written previously a guard for wisdom is being quiet. Just enjoy. Chabad and the Torah.org have commentaries on Avos or Ethics of our Fathers. http://www.torah.org/learning/pirkei-avos/chapter5-1a.html
1. The world was created with ten utterances. What does this come to teach us? Certainly, it could have been created with a single utterance. However, this is in order to make the wicked accountable for destroying a world that was created with ten utterances, and to reward the righteous for sustaining a world that was created with ten utterances.
In chapter 1of Beresheis (Gen.) count how many time HASHEM says things in the creation process.
2. There were ten generations from Adam to Noah. This is to teach us the extent of G-d's tolerance; for all these generations angered Him, until He brought upon them the waters of the Flood.
Check out the reading in Beresheis (Gen.) 5:1-31
There were ten generations from Noah to Abraham. This is to teach us the extent of G-d's tolerance; for all these generations angered Him, until Abraham came and reaped the reward for them all.
Beresheis 11:10 - 24
3. With ten tests our father Abraham was tested and he withstood them all--in order to make known how great was our father Abraham's love [for G-d].
One was after he broke the idols; he was thrown into the furnace which is Oral Torah. There are 8 others starting from the command to leave Haran until the Sacrifice of Yitzchak.
4. Ten miracles were performed for our forefathers in Egypt, and another ten at the sea. Ten afflictions were wrought by G-d upon the Egyptians in Egypt, and another ten at the sea. With ten tests our forefathers tested G-d in the desert, as is stated (Numbers 14:22), "They tested Me these ten times, and did not hearken to My voice."
You will note that in the Haggada of Pessach, the number by the sea according to Rabbi Akiva was 250.
5. Ten miracles were performed for our forefathers in the Holy Temple: No woman ever miscarried because of the smell of the holy meat. The holy meat never spoiled. Never was a fly seen in the slaughterhouse. Never did the High Priest have an accidental seminal discharge on Yom Kippur. The rains did not extinguish the wood-fire burning upon the altar. The wind did not prevail over the column of smoke [rising from the altar]. No disqualifying problem was ever discovered in the Omer offering, the Two Loaves or the Showbread. They stood crowded but had ample space in which to prostrate themselves. Never did a snake or scorpion cause injury in Jerusalem. And no man ever said to his fellow "My lodging in Jerusalem is too cramped for me."
Rabbis continue to look for the lost tribes of Israel: O'siyo Rabbi,
I am personally Levite, by DNA. Please contact our Tribes Ambassador to Israel, Rabbi Lazer Wolf Brother Brody in Israel who found the Cohen Gene in the Iroquois.
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Shalom, Gah gey you e,
Sitting Owl
Very few Jews left in India: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishFeatures/Article.aspx?id=221811
For years I have been trying to expose the Madonna and Demi Moore Kabbalah Centre now read this: http://freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/k/kabbalah/#truth
Guest Editorial thanks to Kathy McKimm: Despite Obama's Speech, Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria Will Outlive Us All By Rabbi Dov Fischer http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0511/fischer_judea_samaria.php3
In approximately 18 months Barack Obama may no longer be President, or just a lame duck limping to January 2013. At most, he would be President for another 5 and half years.
During the same period, more thousands of Jews will continue being added to the population of Judea and Samaria. Since 1967, the following people have passed away when G-d took them in His own good time: Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. During that same period, the Jewish population of Yesha (Judea and Samaria), including the areas of East Jerusalem liberated in June 1967, have grown to 558,000 — 230,000 in Greater East Jerusalem and 328,000 throughout the rest of Yesha. The numbers are on the way to reaching a million.
Yitzchak Rabin had an Oslo plan to withdraw from Yesha, and he tragically was assassinated. Shimon Peres thereupon entered as Israeli Prime Minister with a higher than 90% poll rating, and assured everyone that he would complete the process of withdrawing. Yet, in an unforeseen short period, an outbreak of Arab bus bombings wiped out his support, and he lost office to Binyamin Netanyahu. After Bibi compromised on Hebron at the Wye Conference, his stellar polls suddenly plummeted south, and he was ousted by Ehud Barak. Barak, touted as "Mr. Security," proceeded to withdraw unilaterally from South Lebanon, creating a vacuum soon filled by Hezbollah, and then worked with Bill Clinton to prepare a complete withdrawal from virtually all of Judea and Samaria.
Miraculously, Arafat turned him down, started an Intifada, and Barak lost the government to Ariel Sharon in a landslide. Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, creating a vacuum soon filled by Hamas, and then turned his attention "kadimah" (eastward) to withdrawing from Judea and Samaria. And suddenly, just in the blink of an eye, he sustained a stroke that has left him in a coma for years. Ehud Olmert followed him with the promise to complete the withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. Suddenly, however, a war erupted in Southern Lebanon, and Olmert's military miscalculations and failures, augmented by the incompetence of a Defense Minister with no meaningful qualifications other than being a union organizer who rose to head the Labor Party, obliterated his authority. Stymied by the scandal of war, Olmert eventually recouped over some time and again began to work towards withdrawing from Judea and Samaria, until financial scandals suddenly erupted and forced him out. Next came Tzippi Livni, and she was voted out soon after. And now Netanyahu again.
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Nothing seems to have prevented Israel from withdrawing from the Sinai, from Southern Lebanon, or from Gaza. By contrast, everything — the logical, the inexplicable, and yes the miraculous — repeatedly has prevented a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. During that same period, Nixon had the Rogers Plan. Nixon is dead, and Rogers is dead. Ford came up with the Reassessment Plan. Ford is dead. Jimmy Carter has done everything imaginable to advance the cause of Hamas and Fatah. As President, he pushed Israel until he remarkably was overwhelmed by 19% inflation, Iranian hostages and a botched rescue mission, and Soviet progression throughout Asia, Africa, and South America. Israel got a bit of a remission during the Reagan Years, particularly with Secretaries of State Alexander Haig and George Shultz.
Then George H.W. Bush came in, reached 90% popularity with the Desert Storm Kuwait War, turned his attention to pressing Israel under an anti-Semitic James Baker and even condemned American Jews for lobbying in Washington for Israel, and his poll numbers disappeared overnight, as the economy up-ended and as he was caught on camera in all his human mortality vomiting at a dinner in Japan. Bill Clinton came in, invited Arafat to the White House more than any other Clinton White House visitor, pressed Ehud Barak to give up Judea and Samaria, including most of East Jerusalem, and somehow saw it all fizzle as Arafat rejected the offers and as the Clinton White House unexpectedly became consumed with its own survival as scandals up in scandals began erupting.
George W. Bush came in, supported Israel initially as no President before had done, and enjoyed stellar poll numbers, even expanding his party's leads in the first bi-elections and then winning reelection. As he turned during his second term to pressing Israel, under his "Road Map," to give up Judea and Samaria, the American economy inexplicably collapsed overnight, eradicating his poll numbers and wiping out his party.
And now Barack Obama.
Obama came in with excellent poll numbers, rapidly moved towards pressing Israel to halt all construction in Judea and Samaria, and heaped the onus for Mideast problems on Israel, even traveling throughout the Arab world on an Apology Tour, making that speech in Egypt and pressing Israel to retreat from Judea and Samaria. As the pressure grew on Israel to withdraw, even with White House snubs of Netanyahu, suddenly the oil well inexplicably blew in the Gulf of Mexico. And now, as he has unfolded his new Mideast speech, the Mississippi crests as housing starts recede, joblessness sits at 9 percent, gasoline moves beyond $4 a gallon, all before and leading up to the speech.
As all experienced public speakers know, sometimes a one-hour speech is significant for the two or four sentences buried within the hundreds of other sentences. The entire speech today was crafted around those few sentences in the end, calling on Israel to squeeze itself back to the 1967 borders. A cursory look at all the newsmedia reports of the Obama speech confirms that each and every news analyst understood that the key points of the speech were Obama's call for Israel to return to the 1967 borders, with minor land-swap adjustments — essentially the proposal that Ehud Barak offered to Arafat, long since rejected by Israelis and by Arabs in Judea and Samaria, as well as by those in Hamas Gaza.
All the talk about demilitarizing and assuring and guaranteeing that weapons will not infiltrate into such an Arab Judea-Samaria are ridiculed and amply countered by the massive rearming of Hezbollah in South Lebanon under the noses of the UNIFIL forces and the rearming of Hamas in Gaza since the Goldstone War. If the past half-century has taught anything, it has taught that Israel will not withdraw from Judea or Samaria unless a Higher Power than those in the White House or the Knesset agree and that the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria will outlive all of us, including those now in the White House and the Israeli Prime Minister's residence."
Inyanay Diyoma Longer than usual a lot of fire in my opinions because of Israel and counter Arab Propaganda but from a right of center standpoint. The Torah and Stories ends here.
Anybody notice that Joe Biden did not clap at the united Jerusalem part of Netanyahu's speech. Do you know why? If you don’t believe me look at Biden’s hands as people clap: http://standupamericaus.com/full-netanyahu-speech-to-congress
After the President’s speech to AIPAC and Netanyahu’s speech the White House Spokesman returned to site the 67 Borders.
Obama either doesn’t get it or he is doing it on purpose: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4071435,00.html and http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4071411,00.html
Valarie: http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/05/obamas-abandonment-of-america.php
From Lynette - Don’t listen to the man behind the curtain: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=301285
Also as Shabbos was coming in Israeli time please play the film clip: http://www.uncoverage.net/2011/05/smackdown-netanyahu-scolds-obama-on-live-television-at-white-house/
Believe it or not after American Jewish leaders got kicked in the guts a few times and clobbered over the head and spit on they are starting to put their brains in gear: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072015,00.html
If by accident you believed Obama’s AIPAC re-election speech then the next day: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8529758/Barack-Obamas-big-Middle-East-gamble.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dda884d9df84418%2C0
An analysis of AIPAC: http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-at-aipac-beneath-flattery-he.html
If nobody in the ME likes the policy perhaps something is wrong with it. http://www.debka.com/article/20955/
Europe be aware!!! http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=221654
Six Day War and wounded Yom Kippur War Hero speaks out: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144370
Sarah Palin speaks out on defending Israel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk_5q4fvpZU&feature=share
Jordan’s stability at stake: http://www.debka.com/article/20959/
Why apologize for blood libel? http://www.debbieschlussel.com/37554/video-25-years-still-no-oprah-apology-for-jews-sacrifice-their-kids-show/
Why one should start investing in some solid Israeli stocks: http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/economy-us-invest-gold/2011/05/22/id/397252?s=al&promo_code=C521-1
Iranian assassination plot fails: http://www.debka.com/article/20963/
An Arab who never ever heard of a Palestinian Nation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3n5-yG-6dU
This has gone Viral on Facebook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=youtu.be
What you will not hear on Fox or in the mean stream media: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=303181
Turkey is building a nuclear reactor via Russia but: http://www.debka.com/article/20967/
The Pentagon will help fund four more Iron Dome Systems for Israel but don’t worry Ron Paul the connectors, cables, capacitors, terminal junctions, resistors, O-rings, helicoils, transistors, integrated circuits, screws and bolts, aluminum, etc. are made in the USA: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=222241
The US wants to put radical Islam in Libya by force and I can only guess why. http://www.debka.com/article/20969/
Fund for Tornado Victims: http://www.ou.org/disasterfund
Tornadoes and the Mississippi River floods were not accidents. In the past the Kabbalist Rabbi Pinchas Winston Shlita and then myself published stories in a similar vein. This is an old one repeated and renewed: Nine Major "Acts Of G-d" That Coincided With The Timing of US Pressure On Israel To Give Up Land:
October 30, 1991: President George Bush opens the Madrid Conference with an initiative for a Middle East peace plan involving Israel’s land. On the same day, an extremely rare storm forms off the coast of Nova Scotia. (It was eventually tagged "The Perfect Storm," and a book and movie were made about it.) Record-setting 100-foot waves form at sea and pound the New England Coast, even causing heavy damage to President Bush’s home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
August 23, 1992: The Madrid Conference moves to Washington D.C. and the peace talks resume, lasting four days. On that same day, Hurricane Andrew — the worst natural disaster ever to hit America — produces an estimated $30 billion in damage and leaves 180,000 homeless in Florida.
January 16, 1994: President Clinton meets with Syria’s President Hafez el-Assad in Geneva. They talk about a peace agreement with Israel that includes giving up the Golan Heights. Less than 24 hours later, a powerful 6.9 earthquake rocks Southern California. This quake, centered in Northridge, is the second most destructive natural disaster to hit the United States, behind Hurricane Andrew.
March 1 to April 1997: The combination of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat touring America, and Clinton rebuking Israel for not giving away her land for peace, coincide with some of the worst tornadoes and flooding in US history. On the very day Arafat lands in America, powerful tornadoes devastate huge sections of the nation, ripping across Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee. Arafat’s American tour also coincides with the storms in the Dakotas, which result in the worst flooding of this century, in addition to weeks of major storms throughout the Midwest. Arafat finishes his tour and leaves the US and the storms stop.
January 21, 1998: Netanyahu meets with President Clinton at the White House and is coldly received. Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright refuse to have lunch with him. Shortly afterwards that day, the Monica Lewinsky scandal breaks into the mass media and begins to occupy a major portion of Clinton’s time.
September 27-28, 1998: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright works on the final details of an agreement in which Israel will give up 13 percent of Yesha. The same day Hurricane Georges slams into the Gulf Coast with 110 mph winds and gusts up to 175. The hurricane hits the coast and stalls. On September 28, Clinton meets with Arafat and Netanyahu at the White House to finalize the land deal. Later, Arafat addresses the United Nations about declaring an independent Palestinian state by May 1999, while Hurricane Georges pounds the Gulf Coast causing $1 billion in damage. At the exact time Arafat departs the US the storm begins to dissipate.
October 15-22, 1998: On October 15, 1998, Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the Wye River Plantation in Maryland, to continue the talks which ended on September 28. The talks are scheduled to last five days with the focus on Israel giving up 13 percent of Yesha. The talks are extended and conclude on October 23. On October 17, awesome rains and tornadoes hit southern Texas. The San Antonio area is deluged with 20 inches of rain in one day. The rains and floods in Texas continue until October 22 and then subside. The floods ravage 25 percent of Texas and leave over one billion dollars in damage. On October 21, Clinton declares this section of Texas a major disaster area.
May 3, 1999: This is the same day in Israel that Yasser Arafat is scheduled to declare a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the capital. The declaration is postponed to December 1999 at the request of President Clinton, whose letter to Arafat encourages him for his "aspirations for his own land." He also writes that the Palestinians have a right to "determine their own future on their own land," and that they deserve to "live free, today, tomorrow and forever." That same day, starting at 4:47 pm CDT, the most powerful tornado storm system ever to hit the United States sweeps across Oklahoma and Kansas. The winds are clocked at 316 mph the fastest wind speed ever recorded.
August 29, 2005: Exactly one week after Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon completed the forcible eviction of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip hurricane Katrina struck the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with a destructive and catastrophic force. 80% of the entire city of New Orleans was left under water. Many weather experts called this the worse hurricane and natural disaster that has ever hit the country. President Bush supported Sharon’s evacuation from Gaza.
In April 2005 Bush and Sharon met in Crawford, Texas where Bush praised Sharon for his "strong visionary leadership" in initiating the Gaza withdrawal, known as the disengagement plan. "I strongly support his courageous initiative to disengage from Gaza and part of the West Bank," he said, referring to the withdrawal of more than 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza and four isolated West Bank settlements.
Translated from the Makor Rishon newspaper There is a strange factor common to the developing revolutions in the Arab world: They present no real alternative to the existing regime; no ayatollah in exile in Paris is waiting to take the reins of government in any particular country.
The 22 pseudo-states that the West established in the Arabian expanse - states that never really functioned - are simply crumbling before our eyes. Everybody is waiting to see what will develop, but there is just one possibility that is not being considered: The possibility that nothing will develop. In other words, it could be that what we are witnessing is not a process of change - and certainly not a democratic spring, but rather a process of disintegration. It could be that no other national regime will replace the regimes that have fallen or are falling and that the house of cards that somehow functioned for the 70 years since the British and French left the Middle East will simply collapse in a cloud of dust, to be replaced by the old tribal disarray.
It is now approximately seventy years since the notion of artificially attaching state-nation status to Arabian tribes was invented. It has held up for about the same amount of time that the Soviet Union prevailed, and it seems that it will end the same way that Bush's attempt to suture democracy to the Iraqis ended. It will be quite comical to see how the UN will decide to establish an additional Arab state in September, when the 22 others are in advanced stages of collapse.
What does all of this portend for Israel? Great danger and an even greater opportunity.
If we can internalize the fact that we are facing one, large, tribal Arab nation that does not think in terms of national sovereignty, but rather in terms of religious sovereignty, we will be able to develop a completely new foreign policy. The question is not where our border with Syria will lie, but what dominant forces will rule the region.
If when the dust settles, all that will be left of the Arab states is one large Moslem expanse, there is no doubt that Ahmadinijad, Erdogan and other good meaning fellows will be more than happy to stand at the top of the new Moslem caliphate that will stretch from the Euphrates to the Nile. Somehow, I think that this is exactly what they are considering right now. Historically, both these nations have ruled the Mid-East.
September is not the danger. September is simply a milestone in the process of surrounding Israel. The collapse of the Arab state structure will release potent energy and re-arrange the way things have worked until now. Every ruler who will attempt to unite the Arab world around him will use the one proven method to achieve his goal: hatred of Israel.
The economically shaky Western world will want its foothold in the oil-rich expanse and will come to the aid of the Palestinians. If Obama will be re-elected, he will have no qualms about creating a peace coalition that will set sail in our direction. The dissenting congressmen in Washington will not impress him much. Here in Israel the leftist elites will be waiting for the Obama flotilla with open arms.
We can prevent this entire horror movie from playing itself out if we go on the diplomatic offensive. In the immediate political sense, Likud MK Danny Danon's proposal to declare Israeli sovereignty over the settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria is an excellent place to begin and has the backing of many other Likud MKs.
Nationally, we have to internalize the fact that there is life after America. Israel is a regional power in its own right. It is stronger both militarily and economically than any other force opposing it and can extract an intolerable price from any nation in the world that will threaten its sovereignty.
The world will "do business" with whoever takes regional responsibility and knows how to protect itself from external threats. How does America relate to leaders who do not do so? Just ask Mubarak. – Moshe Feglin
The Arab Apartheid By Ben Dror Yemini
From the link (Hebrew האפרטהייד הערבי): http://www.nrg.co.il/app/index.php?do=blog&encr_id=f2b4c1b55be76d1e6d7b777256ea0370&id=2428 May 14, 2011
The real “nakba,” which is the story of the Arab apartheid. Tens of millions, among them Jews, suffered from the “nakba,” which included dispossession, expulsion and displacement. Only the Palestinians remained refugees because they were treated to abuse and oppression by the Arab countries. Below is the story of the real “nakba”
In 1959, the Arab League passed Resolution 1457, which states as follows: “The Arab countries will not grant citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin in order to prevent their assimilation into the host countries.” That is a stunning resolution, which was diametrically opposed to international norms in everything pertaining to refugees in those years, particularly in that decade. The story began, of course, in 1948, when the Palestinian “nakba” occurred. It was also the beginning of every discussion on the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the blame heaped on Israel, because it expelled the refugees, turning them into miserable wretches. This lie went public through academe and the media dealing with the issue.
In previous articles on the issue of the Palestinians, we explained that there is nothing special about the Israeli Arab conflict. First, the Arab countries refused to accept the proposal of partition and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Second, this entails a population exchange: indeed, between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs (the most precise calculation is that of Prof. Ephraim Karash, who calculated and found that their number ranges between 583,000 and 609,000). Most of them fled, a minority were expelled because of the war and a larger number of about 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (The “Jewish nakba”). Third, the Palestinians are not alone in this story. Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time. They occurred in dozens of other conflict points, and about 52 million people experienced dispossession, expulsion and uprooting (”And the World is lying”). And fourth, in all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, or on the backdrop of the establishment of a national entity, or the disintegration of a multinational state and the establishment of a national entity - there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state. The displaced persons and the refugees, with almost no exceptions, found sanctuary in the place in which they joined a population with a similar background: the ethnic Germans who wore expelled from Central and Eastern Europe assimilated in Germany, the Hungarian refugees from Czechoslovakia and other places found sanctuary in Hungary, the Ukrainians who were expelled from Poland found sanctuary in Ukraine, and so forth. In this sense, the affinity between the Arabs who originated in mandatory Palestine and their neighbors in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, was similar or even greater than the affinity between many ethnic Germans and their country of origin in Germany, sometimes after a disconnect of many generations.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. They crushed the refugees despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation. They instituted a régime of apartheid to all intents and purposes. So we must remember that the “nakba” was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The “nakba” is the story of the apartheid and abuse suffered by the Arab refugees (it was only later that they became “Palestinians”) in Arab countries.
Egypt:
Throughout many eras, there was no real distinction between the inhabitants of Egypt and the inhabitants of the coastal plain. Both were Muslims, Arabs, who lived under Ottoman rule. According to the researcher Oroub El-Abed, commercial ties, mutual migration and intermarriage between the two groups was commonplace. Many of the residents of Jaffa were defined as Egyptians because they arrived in many waves, like the wave of immigration to Jaffa during the rule of Muhammad Ali and his son over many parts of the coastal plain. Inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire, which became mandatory Palestine, did not have an ethnic or religious identity that differed from that of the Egyptian Arabs.
Various records from the end of 1949 show that 202,000 refugees went to the Gaza Strip, primarily from Jaffa, Beer Sheva and Majdal (Ashkelon). That number may be exaggerated because the local poor also joined the list of aid recipients. The refugees went to the place where they were part of the majority group from all standpoints: ethnic, national and religious. Egypt, however, did not think so. At first, back in September 1948, a “government of all Palestine” was established, headed by Ahmad al-Baki. However, it was an organization under Egyptian auspices due to the rivalry with Jordan. The ostensible Palestinian government gave up the ghost after a decade.
What happened to the people in the Gaza Strip? How did the Egyptians treat them? Strangely, there is almost no research dealing with those days. But it is a bit difficult to hide that not so distant past. The Gaza Strip became a closed camp. It became almost impossible to leave Gaza. Severe restrictions were imposed on the Gazans (the originals and the refugees) in everything connected with employment, education and other matters. Every night there was a curfew until dawn the next day. There was only one matter in which the Egyptians assisted to the best of its ability: the school books contained serious incitement against Jews. Already in 1950, Egypt notified the UN that “due to the population crowding,” it would not be possible to assist the Palestinians by resettling them. That was a dubious excuse. Egypt thwarted the UN proposal to resettle 150,000 refugees in Libya. Many of the refugees who had fled in the earlier stages and were within Egypt were also forced to move to the giant concentration camp that was forming in the Gaza Strip. In effect, all the settlement arrangements proposed for resettling the refugees were blocked by the Arab countries.
Despite the absolute isolation, there is testimony about what happened in the Gaza Strip during those years. The important American journalist Martha Gellhorn paid a visit to the refugee camps in 1961. She also went to the Gaza Strip. It wasn’t simple. Gellhorn described the bureaucratic ordeal involved in obtaining an entry permit to the Gaza Strip and the days of waiting in Cairo. She also described the “sharp contrast between the amiability of the clerks, and the anti-Semitic propaganda that blossomed in Cairo.” “The Gaza Strip is not a hole,” Gellhorn stated, “but rather one big prison. The Egyptian government and is the warden.” She described a harsh military régime with all the elite of the Gaza Strip expressing enthusiastically pro-Nasser positions. Thus, for example, “For 13 years (1948-1961) only 300 refugees managed to obtain temporary exit visas.” The only thing that the Egyptians gave the Palestinians was hate propaganda.
That is not the only testimony. In 1966, a Saudi newspaper published a letter by one of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip:
“I would be happy if the Gaza Strip would be conquered by Israel. At least that way we would know that the one violating our honor, hurting us and tormenting us - would be the Zionist oppressor, Ben Gurion, and not an Arab brother whose name is Abdel Nasser. The Jews under Hitler did not suffer the way we are suffering under Nasser. In order to go to Cairo or Alexandria or other cities, we have to go through an ordeal.”
Radio Jedda in Saudi Arabia broadcast the following:
“We are aware of the laws that prohibit Palestinians from working in Egypt. We have to ask Cairo, what is the Iron Curtain that Abdel Nasser and his gang have raised around the Gaza Strip and the refugees? The military governor in Gaza has prohibited every Arab from traveling to Cairo without a military permit, which is valid for only 24 hours. Imagine, Arabs, how Nasser, who claims to be the pioneer of Arab nationalism, treats the wretched Arabs of Gaza, who are starving to death while the military governor and his officers enjoy the riches in the Gaza Strip.”
Even assuming that those were exaggerated descriptions in the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Nasser, we are still left with an oppressive régime of two decades. And it is worth noting another fact - when Israel arrived in the Gaza Strip, the life expectancy there was 48 years of age. After a little over two decades, the life expectancy has jumped to 72 years of age, past that of Egypt. More than the fact that this awards points to Israel, it also shows the abyss in which the Gaza Strip found itself during the days of the Egyptian régime.
Refugees from mandatory Palestine also lived in Egypt itself. Many of them did not even feel that they were Palestinians and preferred to assimilate. The Egyptians prevented them from doing so. Except for a short period of time that was considered the “golden age,” during some of the years of Nasser’s rule, which did not include the Gaza refugees, even those who were in Egypt suffered from restrictions on purchasing land, engaging in certain professions and education (for example, there was a prohibition on the establishment of a Palestinian school). The Egyptian citizenship law allowed citizenship for someone whose father is Egyptian, and later the law was expanded to anyone whose mother is Egyptian. In actuality, however, restrictions were imposed on anyone considered a Palestinian. Even the decision of an Egyptian court canceling the restrictions did not help. The new régime in Egypt has recently promised change. The change, even if it happens, cannot erase many years of discrimination, which was tantamount to collective punishment. Thus, for example, in 1978, Egyptian Minister of Culture Yusouf al-Shib'ai was murdered in Cyprus by a member of Abu Nidal’s group. In reprisal, the Palestinians suffered a new wave of attacks and the Egyptian parliament renewed legislation restricting the Palestinians in education and employment services.
Jordan:
Precisely like the identification and unity between the Arabs of Jaffa and southern Israel, and the Arabs of Egypt, similar identification exists between the Arabs of the West Bank and the Arabs of Jordan. Thus, for example, the Bedouin of the Majalis (or Majilis) tribe from the al-Karak region are originally from Hebron. During the days of the Ottoman Empire, Eastern Jordan was part of the Damascus district, like other parts of what later came under the auspices of the British mandate. According to the Balfour declaration, the area now called Jordan was supposed to be part of the Jewish national homeland.
The initial distress of the refugees on both sides of the Jordan River, was enormous. For example, Iraqi soldiers controlled the area of Nablus, and there is testimony about “the Iraqi soldiers taking the children of the rich for acts of debauchery and returning the children to their families the next day, the inhabitants are frequently arrested.” (in Hebrew) Indeed, Arab solidarity.
It seemed that Jordan treated the refugees differently. Under a 1954 Jordanian law, any refugee who lived in the area of Jordan between 1948 and 1954 was given the right to citizenship. However, that was only the outward façade. Below is a description of the reality under the Jordanian régime in the West Bank:
“We have never forgotten and we will never forget the nature of the régime that degraded our honor and trampled our human feelings. A régime that was built on an inquisition and the boots of the desert people. We lived for a long time under the humiliation of the Arab nationalism and it hurts to say that we had to wait for the Israeli conquest in order to become aware of humane relations with civilians.”
Because these things are liable to sound like an ad from a public relations campaign by the occupying force, it should be noted that they were published in the name of critics from the West Bank in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al Hawadith on April 23, 1971.
As in all other Arab countries, Jordan did not do a thing to dismantle the refugee camps. While Israel was absorbing hundreds of thousands of refugees from Europe and the Arab countries in similar camps (transit camps), and undergoing a punishing process of rehabilitation, building new settlements and dismantling the camps, Jordan did exactly the opposite and prevented any process of rehabilitation. During those same two decades, not one institution of higher learning was established in the West Bank. The flowering of higher education began in the 1970s, after the Israelis took control..
Even the citizenship that was given to the refugees was mainly for the sake of appearances. Despite the fact that the Palestinians number over 50% of the inhabitants of Jordan, they hold only 18 seats - out of 110 - in the Jordanian parliament, and only 9 senators out of 55, who are appointed by the king. It should also be recalled that during just one month, September 1970, in one confrontation, Jordan killed many more Palestinians than all the Palestinians who have been hurt in the 43 years of Israeli rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Syria:
The first Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations, the first Palestinian Arab conference, was held in Jerusalem in 1919. At the conference, it was decided that Palestine, which had just been conquered by the British, was southern Syria - an integral part of greater Syria. Over the years of the mandate, the immigration from Syria into the British mandate territory increased, for example, the Al-Hourani family, which arrived from the Houran in Syria, and others. The idea of “greater Syria,” which included mandatory Palestine, was also reflected in the growing involvement of Syrians in the great Arab rebellion and in the gangs that arrived from Syria during the War of Independence. The refugees, therefore, were not strangers politically, religiously or ethnically. To the contrary. Their fate should not have been different from the fate of other ethnic groups who were expelled to a place in which they constituted the national and cultural majority.
Between 70,000 and 90,000 refugees arrived in Syria, the decisive majority of them from Safed, Haifa, Tiberias and Acre. Thus, in 1954, they were granted partial rights, which did not include political rights. Until 1968, they were prohibited from holding property. Syrian law enables any Arab citizens to obtain Syrian citizenship, provided that his permanent residence is in Syria and he has a proven capacity for economic subsistence. However, the Palestinians are the only ones outside the applicability of the law. Even if they are permanent residents and possess means, the law prevents them from obtaining citizenship.
Only 30% of those who, for some reason, are still considered “Palestinian refugees in Syria” still live in refugee camps. Actually, they should long ago have been considered Syrians to all intents and purposes. They were part of the national Arab identity, they are connected by family ties, they should have been assimilated into the economic life of the country. But despite that, as a result of the political brainwashing, they remain in Syria as a foreign element, they daydream about the “right of return,” and are kept perpetually in their inferior status. Most of them are at the bottom of the employment ladder, in the service (41%) and construction (27%) professions. But there is nothing like the field of education to clarify their situation. 23% do not even go to elementary schools and only 3% reach academic education.
Lebanon:
In the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians suffered for only two decades because of the Egyptian régime. In Lebanon, the apartheid continues to this day. The result is poverty, neglect, and enormous unemployment. Up to 1969, the refugee camps were under the stringent military control of Lebanon. According to the descriptions of Martha Gellhorn, most of the refugees were in a reasonable situation. Many even improved their standard of living compared with the days before the “nakba.” But in 1969, the Cairo Agreement was signed, which transferred control of the camps to the refugees themselves. The situation only grew worse. Terrorist organizations took control of the camps, which turned them into arenas of conflict - mostly violent - among the various groups.
A new study that was published in December 2010 presents data that makes the Gaza Strip look like paradise compared with Lebanon. Indeed, there was some scant publicity about it here and there, but as far as we know, there was no worldwide protest, not even a Turkish or international flotilla.
In contrast to Syria and Jordan, in which most of those defined as refugees are no longer in refugee camps, two thirds of the Palestinians in Lebanon live in camps, which are “enclaves outside the control of the state.” The most stunning data is that, despite the fact that about 425,000 refugees are registered with UNRWA, the study found that only between 260,000 and 280,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon. The paradox is that UNRWA is receiving financing for more than 150,000 people who are not even in Lebanon. This figure alone should have led to a serious inquest by the financing countries (primarily the US and Europe), but there is no chance that that will happen. The issue of the refugees is fraught with so many errors and lies that one more lie doesn’t really change anything. And so UNRWA can demand a budget for 425,000 people from the international community, while its website has a link to the study that shows that it’s all a fiction.
According to the study, the refugees are suffering from 56% unemployment. That seems to be the highest figure, not just among the Palestinians, but in the entire Arab world. Even those who are working are at the bottom of the employment ladder. Only 6% of those in the workforce have some kind of academic degree (compared with 20% of the workforce in Lebanon). The result is that 66% of the Palestinians in Lebanon live below the poverty line, which was set at six dollars per day per person. That is double the number of the Lebanese.
This dismal state of affairs is a result of apartheid to all intents and purposes. A series of Lebanese laws restrict the right to citizenship, to property, and to employment in the fields of law, medicine, pharmaceutics, journalism, etc. In August 2010 there was a limited amendment to the labor law but the amendment did not actually lead to any real change. Another directive prohibits the entry of building materials into refugee camps, and there are reports of arrests and the demolition of houses resulting from construction in the refugee camps. The partial and limited prohibition imposed by Israel on bringing building materials into the Gaza Strip stemmed from the firing of rockets at population centers. As far as we know, no prohibition was imposed in Lebanon due to a similar firing of rockets at population centers. And despite that, again, beyond the dry reports of human rights organizations, as part of the outlook that “they are permitted to do as they please,” no serious protest was recorded and no “apartheid week” was held against Lebanon.
Kuwait:
In 1991, the Palestinians constituted 30% of the country’s population. Relative to other Arab countries, their situation there was reasonable. Then Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq. As part of the attempts at compromise that proceeded to first Gulf War, Saddam made a “proposal” to retreat from Kuwait in exchange for Israel’s retreat from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The PLO, headed by Yasir Arafat, supported Saddam’s proposal. That support was the opening salvo in one of the worst events in Palestinian history. After Kuwait was liberated from the Iraqi conquests, and anti-Palestinian campaign commenced, which included persecution, arrests and show trials. The terrible saga ended in the expulsion of 450,000 Palestinians. Incidentally, some of them had settled there back in the 1930s, and most of them had no connection to Arafat’s support for Saddam. Nevertheless, they were subject to collective punishment, a transferor of proportions similar to the original nakba in 1948, which barely earned any mention in the world media. There are endless academic publications on the expulsion and flight in 1948. There are close to zero studies on the “nakba” of 1991.
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These are the main countries in which the refugees are located. Apartheid is also rampant in other countries. In Saudi Arabia, the refugees from mandatory Palestine have not received citizenship. In 2004, Saudi Arabia announced some changes but clarified that the changes do not include the Palestinians. Jordan also prevents 150,000 refugees, most of them originally from the Gaza Strip, from receiving citizenship now. In Iraq, the refugees were actually given preference under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, but since he fell from power they have become one of the most persecuted groups. Twice, both on the Libyan-Egyptian border and on the Syria,-Iraqi border, thousands of expelled Palestinians lived in temporary camps and not a single Arab state agreed to take them. That was a formidable show of “Arab solidarity,” in making the “Arab nation.” And it continues. Palestinians from Libya, refugees from the civil war, are now arriving at the border of Egypt, which refuses to grant them entry.
Time after time the Arab countries have rejected proposals to resettle the refugees, despite the fact that there was room and there was a need. The march continues. In 1995, the ruler of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, decided to expel 30,000 Palestinians, just because he was angry about the Oslo accords, about the PLO, and about the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. A Palestinian doctor, Dr. Ashraf al-Hazouz, spent 8 years in a Libyan prison (together with Bulgarian nurses), on false charges of spreading AIDS. In August 2010, before the present uprising, Libya passed laws that made the lives of the Palestinians impossible. It was precisely at the time when Libya dispatched a “humanitarian aid ship” to the Gaza Strip. There is no limit to hypocrisy.
The following is a summary of the apartheid against minorities in the Arab world in general, and against the Palestinians in particular. But there is a difference. While the Copts in Egypt or the Kurds in Syria are, indeed, minorities, the Arabs from mandatory Palestine were supposed to be an integral part of the Arab nation. Two of the symbols of the Palestinian struggle were born in Egypt - Edward Said and Yasir Arafat. Both of them tried to fabricate their birthplace as Palestine. Two other prominent symbols of the struggle by the Arabs of mandatory Palestine are Fawzi al-Qawuqji (who competed with the mufti to lead the Arab struggle against the British) and Izz al-Din al-Qassam - the former Lebanese and the latter Syrian. There is nothing strange about this, because the struggle was Arab, not Palestinian. And despite that, the Arabs of mandatory Palestine became the most downtrodden and spurned group of all, following the Arab defeat in 1948. The vast majority of the descriptions from those years talks about Arabs, not about Palestinians. Later, only later, did they become Palestinians.
The Arab countries are well aware that their treatment of the refugees from mandatory Palestine was no less than scandalous. To that end, they signed the “Casablanca Protocol” in 1965, which was supposed to grant the Palestinians the right of employment and movement, but not citizenship. To have it almost within their grasp. But like other documents of that type, this one did not change a thing. The abuse continued.
At the comparative level, it seems that the Palestinian group that underwent the most significant growth is the one that is under Israeli sovereignty - both the Israeli Arabs who received Israeli citizenship, whose situation is far better, and the Arabs of the territories. Despite the harsh living conditions in Lebanon and Syria, and before that also in Egypt and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians under Israeli rule, beginning in 1967, have enjoyed a steady rise in their standard of living, in employment, in health services, in life expectancy, in the dramatic drop in infant mortality, and in the enormous growth of higher education.
For example, in all the territories captured by Israel in 1967, there was not one institution of higher education. In the 1970s, academic institutions began to sprout one after the other, and today there are at least 16 institutions of higher education. The growth in the number of students has continued for three decades, including during the years of the Intifada in the last decade. Within six decades the Palestinians - only those under Israeli rule - have become the most educated group in the Arab world.
The same is true in the political arena. After decades of political oppression, it was only under Israeli rule that the Palestinian national consciousness sprang up. For two decades after the War of Independence, the Arabs could have established a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. They did not do so - until Israel arrived and released them from the oppression of two decades. That didn’t make the occupation desirable. It doesn’t mean that there weren’t injustices and dispossessions. There were. But it seems that after the first two decades following the “nakba,” it was actually the era of Israeli rule that caused the enormous flourishing growth in every field. We should, and we must, criticize the negative aspects of the occupation. But we should, and we must, also remember the aspect that is ignored.
In the past decades, the lie has arisen again and again about Israel’s responsibility for the distress of the Palestinians, so it is advisable to set matters straight. The Palestinians went through a terrible experience of uprooting and expulsion. Most of them fled. Some of them were expelled. But, again, that type of occurrence was experienced by tens of millions of others. The difference lies in the fact that all the other tens of millions were absorbed by the countries to which they went. That has not been the case with the Palestinians. They have gone through ordeals of oppression, abuse, and denial of rights. That was the work of the Arab countries, which decided to perpetuate the situation. Many proposals to resolve the problem of the Palestinians and resettle them have been rejected again and again. The open wound has festered. Time after time the Arabs themselves have claimed that the Arabs are one nation. The borders between the countries, and of this there is no dispute, are a fiction of the colonial government. After all, there is no difference, either ethnic, or religious, or cultural, or national, between the Arabs of Jaffa and Gaza and the Arabs of El Arish and Port Said, or between the Arabs of Safed and Tiberias and the Arabs of Syria and Lebanon. Despite that, the Arab refugees have become the forced victims of the Arab world. The “right of return,” which is primarily a propaganda invention, has become the ultimate demand. Behind this demand was hidden, and still hides, one single intention: the annihilation of the State of Israel. The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Muhammad Salah al-Din, said back in 1949 that the “demand for the right of return was actually intended to achieve the purpose of annihilating Israel.” That was also the case at a conference of refugees that was held in 1957 in Homs in Syria, where it was declared that “Any discussion of the refugee issue that does not promise the right to the annihilation of Israel will be deemed a desecration of the Arab nation and treason.” There is no confusion here between the “right of return” and the “right of annihilation.” It is the same “right.” Identical words about return, whose purpose is the annihilation of Israel, were stated in 1988 by Sacher Habash, Yasir Arafat’s adviser. So, too, in our day, is the BDS campaign, whose platform supports the “right of return,” and whose leaders, such as Omar Barghouti, explained that the real objective is the annihilation of Israel.
Already back in 1952, Alexander Galloway, a senior official in UNRWA, stated that “The Arab countries do not want to resolve the problem of the refugees. They want to leave them like an open wound, as a weapon against Israel. The Arab rulers don’t care at all if the refugees live or die.” The Palestinian - and usually also the academic - historiography erased series of expressions of that type, just as it erased the absorption of tens of millions of refugees in other places, and as it erased the “Jewish nakba,” the story of the dispossession and expulsion of Jews from Arab countries, and as it erased the story of the Arab apartheid. But the truth must be told. Indeed, there was a nakba, but it is a nakba that is recorded primarily in the name of the Arab apartheid.
Ben-Dror Yemini is a researcher, a lecturer and a journalsit (bdyemini@gmail.com) He is slightly left of the Israeli Center in his other Israeli Opinions so he is consensus here. An Ed-Op regarding PM Netanyahu’s speech: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4072989,00.html
Be well and have a good Shabbos,
Rachamim Pauli
