The Torah, a Contract, a Covenant of a Different Kind

In this week’s Torah portion,  Parshat Ekev, D’varim (Deuteronomy) 7:12-8:10, Moshe continues to remind Am Yisrael of the terms of the Covenant that they had entered with G-d at Mount Sinai when receiving the Torah.

Like any contract, written or oral that is entered into between the parties ,  the Mosaic Covenant specifies obligation, the mitzvot, as well as the rewards that result from fulfillment of all obligations and includes  the adverse results of violating its terms and how to deal with such consequences.

There are other Covenants that G-d has entered with Am Yisrael as as the Abrahamic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant. Unlike the Mosaic Covenant though, those are unconditional. This one is not only conditional, it is one that is not easy to follow. Yet, as we all know, Am Yisrael accepted it verbally and out-rightly when they said,     נעשה ונשמע“Naaseh Venishma.” (We shall do and listen).  It is one that is not easy to follow,

A law school professor might tell his students that the Mosaic Covenant is a “CONTRACT OF ADHESION”

A type of Contract, a legally binding agreement between two parties to do a certain thing, in which one side has all the bargaining power and uses it to write the contract primarily to his or her advantage.

That law professor would also possibly ask his students about its validity.  After all, what choice did the people feel they had about accepting such a contract from an all-powerful G-d who had just freed them from slavery in Egypt?   Moreover, they were asked to accept this deal without having really studied it and without benefit of legal counsel to help them understand its implications. 

In retrospect, would they agree that it was a good deal?  Some, like those who erected he Golden Calf or Korach and his congregation, did not and proceeded to violate the contract’s provisions with disastrous effect.

Now, why have we written about this?  

This story teaches something unique about Judaism and Jewish culture and why Torah should have been studied and seen only in the original Hebrew language.

It, also, illustrates something vastly different between traditional Jewish interpretations of Torah and those of others who have adopted Jewish literature and interpreted it to fit their own theologies.

One example where translations of the Torah from Hebrew has erred, innocently or deliberately, is when one refers to the information that was written on the Two Tablets that Moshe brought down from Mount Sinai as “commandments.” What was inscribed on them is described in the Torah asדברות   (Diberot) literally meaning  “pronouncements,” NOT “commandments” as the translation reads. There is a different word in Hebrew for commandments, מצוות (Mitzvot).

Our Torah, literally “instruction” (not law), in Hebrew, describes what happened at Mount Sinai  as ‘giving’ the Torah as a ‘gift’ (giving and gift in Hebrew  are derived from the same root, נ,ת,נ), implying that the giver is benevolent and loving,  like a caring parent,  caring for the welfare and best interests of its children. Therefore, though it may still be a contract of adhesion, it is one provided in love and concern.  It’s the parent who tells his child “look both ways before crossing the street, because the consequences of not doing so could be horrible”, not to set up the child to be fearful and not to be mean to the child, but out of love and care.   That, too, is a ‘contract of adhesion’, but one based on love and concern.

We are troubled by those who teach that all Abrahamic religions are essentially the same, just versions of the same themes and beliefs with little differences here and there.  Some Jews want to believe that as it makes them feel safer to be like everyone else in what they fear as a hostile world.  Christian Missionaries have for a long time preached that line to Jews to encourage them to convert, to just accept a small change, they claim, for salvation.   The problem is that between Judaism and the other “Abrahamic religions,” there is a theologically wide gulf that makes them almost polar opposites.

Christianity sees the establishment of the contract between G-d and Am Yisrael precisely as that definition above of the Contract of Adhesion.  A cruel and demanding G-d imposing harsh rules on the people with a deal they cannot dare refuse without an opportunity to study it.  They combine that with the Hellenistic belief that mankind is helpless and at the whim of the fates and gods, needing a hero to save them.  (according to Christian theologian Fr. Hans Kung). 

In great contrast, Judaism sees that contract more as directions and lessons (Torah, as we mentioned above, means instruction) from a benevolent kind father, who wants the best for his children and from a Benevolent G-d who wants the best for His People, ones who share the desire to set the standards and warn against what will naturally happen if those standards are not kept.  It’s the parent who warns his children to look both ways before crossing the street because he cares for their safety and welfare. 

Thus, for Am Yisrael and Jews, the Covenant is not the kind of one sided deal imposed by the powerful G-d.  It is lessons given as a gift to those who might benefit. In this case, it is Am Yisrael ONLY.


This article was written jointly by Roger Froikin and Bat-Zion Susskind

Some of us are not only Jews, we are also Jewish

This article was written jointly by Roger Froikin and Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks

As far as we are concerned, there is a difference between the two. They are not always one and the same.

A Jew, according to the Oxford definition is “A member of the people and cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who trace their origins through the ancient Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham.”

We are not going to enter a debate here on who is a Jew. This definition merely addresses what a Jew is.

That same source defines Jewish as :” Of or relating to the Jews or their culture or religion.”

What begs to be concluded from these two definitions is that in order to be Jewish, one needs to be a Jew first. To be born a Jew or to become a Jew, one is automatically admitted into the Covenant that G-d entered with Avraham.

The Abrahamic Covenant is an unconditional Covenant. G-d made promises to Avraham in Bresheet (Genesis) 15:18-21. That Covenant which requires nothing of Avraham deals mainly with the dimension of the Land that G-d promised to him and his descendants. The rite itself as described in Bresheet 12:1-3 reinforces the notion that it is an unconditional one as it is G-d alone who passes between the pieces of animals after causing Avraham to fall into a deep sleep. The sign of this Covenant is the Brit Mila, the ceremony of circumcision (Bresheet 17:9-14). All males in the Avrahmic line were to be circumcised so that they bear a lifelong mark of it upon their flesh. Any descendant of Avraham who is denied or refuses circumcision was naturally declared and destined to be outside of G-d’s Covenant. Entering the Avrahamic Covenant is one of the conditions of being a Jew.

There is another Covenant that every Jew enters either upon birth or when becoming one. It is one that has shaped Am Yisrael and our Jewish people into who we are today. It is the Mosaic one, the one we entered with G-d at Mount Sinai. Unlike the Avrahamic Covenant, this one is a conditional one.

A Law school professor might call it a “contract of adhesion” in which the terms are presented as non-negotiable and to be accepted by the people. G-d presented His law to Am Yisrael at Mount Sinai as described in Shemot (Exodus) 19:5. Their response was acceptance, saying, “נעשה ונשמע " We shall do and we shall hear!” (Shemot 19:8).

The Mosaic Covenant sets Am Yisrael and the Jewish People apart from other nations. It is in understanding the responsibilities and values that are inherent to the Covenant at Mount Sinai, being motivated by them, identifying with them and acting consistent with them, that turns the Jew into Jewish. It is important to note here, that though some of the values such as social justice and moral code dictated to Am Yisrael, at Mount Sinai are universal, Judaism itself is not universal. It belongs to Jews and Am Yisrael only.

Now, we would bet people reading this so far expect the next paragraph to include an endorsement that Jews become more religious. No, that is not the intent of this essay. Nor is the intent to define who is a Jew or what Judaism is beyond the statements above.

Instead, the idea is to alert Jews to a problem. There are those Jews who have excluded themselves from the Jewish People representing themselves as Jews, when often they are not under normative and historical Jewish definitions. These Jews represent their motivations as Jewish when they are not. These Jews claim their values as Jewish when they are not.

This not a new phenomenon. Only the titles have changed. Throughout history, when Jews have been a minority or under foreign rule, there have been those Jews who saw it in their best interest to join with the powers that be and the group they ruled. They did it, and too often, to prove their allegiance (sometimes required, sometimes not) to their new “friends” by opposing the interests of the Jewish People, by actively negating – or reinterpreting – their connection to the Jewish people.

For instance, in Iberia, between 1200 and 1500, some Jews converted to Christianity so as not to be persecuted. When the Inquisition came in 1492 (1496 in Portugal), many of these converts became the most anti-Semitic people in Christian Spain. Torquemada, the first grand inquisitor, is one example.

In the late 19th Century and early 20th, many Jews in Europe, in an effort avoid being subject to exclusion and persecution, converted to Catholicism, seeking safety and security in a change of ideology, dumping their Judaism for what appeared to them to be “universalism.” Other Jews joined political movements, socialism, communism, trading Judaism for these universalist movements, as if to hide and seek safety in a universal ideology.

Today, we see some Jews acting similarly, but with a bit of a change. It is no longer necessary to hide that one is a Jew. Thus, instead of denying that they are Jews and in order to fit in, they reinterpret what Judaism is and turn it into universal secularism. This way, they create the fiction which allows them remain Jewish under the claim that the ethics of Judaism are indistinguishable from the latest liberal universal definition of secularism. In short, they leave Judaism and Jewish concerns and interests behind to become the Jew who is a believer in whatever the latest fashionable approach to secularism is. Liberalism and all its clichés of the day has become their religion, though they falsely label it Jewish.

So how is this modern manifestation different from the former Jews who were anti-Semites in post 1492 Spain, for example ? Not at all. So, for instance, when we see a “Jewish Voice for Peace” sidind with those who call for the destruction of Yisrael and the murder of Jews, we need to understand what they are. When we see an organization like B’Zelem in Medinat Yisrael (Israel) make an effort to damage Yisrael’s security and give aid and comfort to those that wish it destroyed, because they worry about what Europe thinks, we’ve seen it before.

We have all seen these online debates in which some far left wing Jew that claims to be pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist is called a Kapo by those who oppose him. Not only is that kind of characterization unfair and inaccurate, but it is perhaps not strong enough. “Kapos” became Kapos, because they were trying to survive often when the alternative was death. Those who claim the title “Jew” today, but who ally themselves with anti-Semites, who support murderers of Jews, did not take that position for their own safety or that of their families, but for other reasons that are not nearly as noble. We believe that they are worse than Kapos by any measure.

Frankly, the Jewish nation does not need people who choose to endanger the Jewish people in favor of some left-wing universalist clichés. The Jewish People does not need those who want to solve their psychological and sociological problems by damaging the future for the rest of us. The last thing the Jewish People needs is the kind of Jew who laughs at Jewish heritage and dismisses it in some misguided effort to be liked by gentiles.

In the Passover Hagaddah, there is the allegory of the 4 sons. One of them asks, “what does all this mean to you” as if excluding himself from Judaism, its Heritage, history and its ethical and moral standards. It is those misguided Jews, we believe, that the Hagaddah addresses.

So what should the Jewish people do about these “Jews in Name Only” ?

The first step is to understand what we started this essay with --- that a Jew can choose to be Jewish or not. We, Jews, first and foremost, need to understand that merely being a descendant of the Avrahamic Covenant does not automatically make one a party to the one made at Sinai. Wishing our Jewish brothers and sisters a happy and blessed Pesach.

Lost, misused and abused in translation

Translations have many positive facets. They bridge between cultures, peoples and societies. They can help enlighten us, educate us and enrich us.

Unfortunately, translations, when done by the wrong entities, some of whom may carry their own selfish agenda, can lead just to the opposite. The consequences can be detrimental, cause much strife and shed rivers of blood.

One such translation is what is known as the Septuagint (תרגום השבעים), an affair that went down in Jewish history as a sad and disastrous milestone. In fact, it was considered such a calamity that Jewish rabbis designated a special mourning day to commemorate it.

It all started in the third century B.C.E. with the Greek ruler, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the king of Ptolemic Egypt. An educated man, Ptolemy wished to augment his library in Alexandria and commissioned seventy-two (six from each of the twelve tribes) scholars to translate the Torah and later the rest of the Tanach into Greek. This translation came to be known as “The Septuagint” (Seventy in Latin). The main reason for producing the translation was for the benefit of the many Jews who were scattered throughout the Greek Empire and who were beginning to lose their Hebrew language. The translation also gave many non - Jews an opportunity to have a glimpse at the Hebrew Scriptures. Apparently, a noble cause but, as you will soon learn, dear readers, a great reason for alarm.

The main concern of Jewish authorities regarding this translation or for that matter, any translation, was that it might pose danger to the Biblical message and word, the danger of being misunderstood or badly interpreted. Unfortunately for us, Jews, this has ended up being the case which in turn gave rise to much of the suffering that many of our people have endured throughout history and continue to endure until this very day.

To those of you wondering why I chose to write about this subject, let me just add that I have personal reasons for alerting my fellow Jews to the dangers that such mistranslations hold. As a teacher who lost at least one student to the unrelenting efforts of missionaries to convert Jews, I learned that the lurking spiritual thieves use such mistranslations to lure Jews into their midst. Uneducated Jews will fall an easy prey to them. Knowledge is power and a tool to ward off such efforts. The more our Jewish brethren know about their own history and the better they understand it, the less likely are they to become victims of treacherous efforts by the missionaries!

Let us move on to some examples of how our Tanach was mistranslated and the ensuing price, we Jews and Am Yisrael sustained as a result.

One example that comes to mind is the mistranslation of Leviticus 34, verse 29: "כי קרן עור פני משה" (Moshe’s skin was radiant). The Hebrew word for “radiate”קרן  , is the same as that for  “horn.” This mistaken translation is well illustrated in the famous sculpture of Moshe by Michelangelo which is displayed in Rome. One can hardly ignore the horns that were added to the gracious figure of Moshe holding the two tablets. That mistranslation not only affected Michelangelo’s creation, it was also a tool used by many anti-Semites through history to describe Jews and attributing to them monstrous traits. And who loves monsters?

Another example causing much controversy and a rift between Judaism and Christianity can be found in the Book of Isaiah Chapter 7 verse 14. There it says: “לכן יתן אדני הוא לכם אות הנה העלמה הרה וילדת בן וקראת שמו עמנו אל” The same verse is conveniently translated as: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

Luckily, the Tanach was written in Hebrew and yours truly is proficient in that language. Isaiah does NOT use the word “virgin” in that verse in Hebrew. He uses the word  (almah) עלמה “maiden,” “an unmarried woman.” The Hebrew word for virgin is בתולה (betulah). If Isaiah had indeed intended to impress upon us that he was prophesying the immaculate conception would he not have used “betulah” instead of “almah?”

“But hey,” argue my devout Christian friends, “were not all maidens during Biblical era expected to be virgins?” A valid argument indeed, one would suggest. But do not rush to any conclusions, dear friends, not yet anyway. And this, by the way, is where many innocent ignorant Jews fall in the trap set by messianics and missionaries. Unfortunately for the missionaries who enter a debate with me on this verse in Isaiah, I always have the answer.

It is then that I enlist the help of a publication called  a “ Bible Concordance,” a verbal index to the Bible. In it, one can find references to every word that appears in the Tanach. Since my contenders suggest that “a Biblical maiden has got to be a virgin,” I looked up the references to maiden. It appears in the Tanach seven times. The first one is in Genesis 24, verse 43  where Eliezer, the servant of Avraham describes Rivkah, the future wife of Yitzchak “מג הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי נִצָּב, עַל-עֵין הַמָּיִם; וְהָיָה הָעַלְמָה, הַיֹּצֵאת לִשְׁאֹב, וְאָמַרְתִּי אֵלֶיהָ, הַשְׁקִינִי-נָא מְעַט-מַיִם מִכַּדֵּךְ.  ("See, I am standing beside this spring. If a maiden comes out to draw water and I say to her, "Please let me drink a little water from your jar") .In that same chapter verse 17, Rivkah is described as a Virgin, betulah that no man knew (and we all know what “to know” in the Biblical sense means). “טז ""וְהַנַּעֲרָ, טֹבַת מַרְאֶה מְאֹד--בְּתוּלָה, וְאִישׁ לֹא יְדָעָהּ  (The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her). So here is my question to you, dear missionaries, if indeed it was so obvious that almah, a young maiden is akin to betulah in Biblical times, why was there a need to reiterate it in the case of Rivkah? Evidently, it was not as obvious as you would like your poor uneducated Jewish victims to believe!

So how did the Hebrew word almah become virgin? Remember the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Tanach? That is where the answer lies. In Greek, the same word Parthenos means BOTH “maiden” and “virgin.” Isn’t it natural, therefore, that to make their case for the immaculate conception, early Christianity conveniently chose the word virgin instead of the original Hebrew word for maiden?

Finally, and I have used that example of mistranslation a few times, I have an issue with those who refer to my homeland as Israel (where the S is pronounced as a Z instead of Yisrael where the S is pronounced as it should be an S.

Israel (where S sounds like Z) when written in Hebrew עיברית (Ivrit) the language of Am Yisrael, the language of our heritage, is spelled as יזרעאל  which is how we spell the valley of Jezereel in the Northern part of Eretz Yisrael. That valley is ONLY one part of our Jewish Homeland. Additionally, it also means something totally different than what our forefathers intended for our state. It means in Hebrew, “G-d will sow”. The name Yisrael which is the correct English spelling of our Home has a totally different meaning.

The name “Yisrael, first appears in the Torah, in the Book of Bresheet (AKA Genesis in its Hellenistic translation) Chapter 32 verse 29 “לֹא יַעֲקֹב יֵאָמֵר עוֹד שִׁמְךָ כִּי אִם-יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם-אֱ-לֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים וַתּוּכָל "  (No longer shall your name be Yaakov, but Yisrael because you fought with G-d and people).

Dear Jewish readers, Am Yisrael and those who claim to love us, do you realize the significant message that the name יִשְׂרָאֵל  (Yisrael, where the S is pronounced like an S as it should be!) bears? Do you grasp the message of Hope, Strength and Promise that it holds? No longer shall your name be Yaakov, which in Hebrew means to follow, to walk in the footsteps of others. We shall no longer be followers, but rather leaders. We will lead our people and those who wish to follow our holy message that we carry for humanity. We shall do it against all odds. We shall face our challengers, our haters and adversaries and we shall win! We are the People of Eternity!

Am Yisrael Chai <3

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When it comes to Jews and Yisrael, “Open Season” is always there

Borrowed from the hunting domain where the term “Open Season” means  “a period when it is legal to kill or catch game or fish protected at other times by law,” it has also come to suggest a time when someone or something is openly attacked or criticized by many and often for no reason.

Yes, I know, some here will go up in arms and cry, “here they come again waving the ‘victim card,’ the Jews are at it again, Yisraelis are at it again!”

Well, dear readers, if you look closer, or at least try to look closer, you will see that it is not a “victim card” we are waving at you, rather, it is the “reality card!” Nowadays, when it comes to Yisrael, it has become indeed an “Open Season,” mostly by those who wish to bring an end to it and, sometimes, even by those who claim to be sympathizers and friends.

I am appalled anew each time that I see, read and witness clichés being thrown, used, abused and misused when it comes to Yisrael. Let us take for example the term “Apartheid” How many parrot the term irresponsibly when they barely know what it really means and what it stands for?

In anticipation of such ignorance, I always supply myself with a very basic definition of the term. I have used it numerous times to educate those who are in dire need for it. The definition of “Apartheid” that I carry around with me is very basic. It is derived from www.oxforddictionaries.com.It states that “Apartheid” is "(In South Africa) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race"

I challenge our listeners to find one but one such policy or law in the Yisraeli system, one that separates Jewish Yisraelis from other Yisraelis. I urge them to point at any decree that discriminates against anyone based on color, creed, religion or race.
They all remain speechless!

Does it stop them?

I could go on and name other examples of unjustified and baseless attacks against the Jewish state. The venomous kool-aide that many innocent and ignorant victims have been drinking is very potent. Seems that the antidote for it has yet to be invented.

It is not only foes, however, that Yisrael and Yisraelis seem to be open to criticism and attacks to. There are those well-wishers who, out of belief that they only mean well, criticize us, attack us and drag our name through the mud.

Let me indulge you with some illustrations.

Two weeks ago, there was a terror attack in the heart of Tel Aviv. A Christian friend who claims to be a dear friend of Yisrael and the Jewish people, suggested that it was a form of punishment for Tel Aviv holding a gay pride parade a few days earlier. Oh really?  To that we can only say, "we will be damned if we do and damned if we don't."

And then, of course, there are friends who love us so dearly that they feel they can define us, tell us who we are and what we should be. They use terminology coined by Hellenistic heathens who had forced their lexicon upon us, dictated to us what to do, how we should do it and when. Yes, these friends only mean well, we are certain, but should we try to defy their efforts, take our destiny into our own hands and shape it, that is when their true colors come out.

Christian missionaries are a perfect example for that. Of course they will claim they do not attack us. Of course they will claim that they only want to help us. Of course they feel that if they trespass our boundaries and put deceitful leaflets into our mailboxes, they only mean well. After all, their sole wish is to turn us into "complete Jews."

Time to close the season, dear foes and friends. If there is a law protecting animals against hunting, there should be one defending Jews in Eretz Yisrael and the world over. The time when Jews were treated as merely another species in the Animal Kingdom is over. The Ghetto Jew is dead. Yisrael, should create laws to protect its Jewish citizens. Everyone else here seems to be already protected!

Our Tree of Life

       

I wanted to write an article about Jewish survival.

But then I realize that the vast story of survival, growth and progress spanning over a few millennia as experienced by Am Yisrael and the Jewish People cannot be pressed into several hundred words. Like many, though, I am intrigued and I cannot help but marvel at this very unusual experience, the Jewish experience, on the timeline of world history.

I keep asking myself. What was it? What was that nourishing Spring, that powerful source, that elixir that sustained our People through some very difficult chapters over the ages and kept them alive? What was the spark that constantly charged our essence and reignited that pillar of fire which brightened our People’s path through history in our pursuit of Life?

I always come back to that same answer: Torah.

“She is a tree of Life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is every one that holdest her fast.”

יח  עֵץ-חַיִּים הִיא, לַמַּחֲזִיקִים בָּהּ;    וְתֹמְכֶיהָ מְאֻשָּׁר

 (Proverbs Chapter 3, VS. 18).

Before anyone jumps down my throat, let me add that yes, I am aware that when King Solomon wrote these wise words, he was describing wisdom. To me, and I venture to say, to King Solomon as well, Torah is wisdom. It is a book aimed at teaching us how to conduct our life. It is a manual that spells out what a Jew is expected to do and how a Jew should behave in order to be able to live a fulfilling life. It is one of the oldest such manuals, one that is flexible, adaptable and leaves room for choice. Its ultimate message to us is, choose life "  יט העידותי בכם היום, את-השמיים ואת-הארץ--החיים והמוות נתתי לפניך, הברכה והקללה; ובחרת, בחיים--למען תחיה, אתה וזרעך. " (I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live) Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19.

And is there one here who can say that this message is not saturated with wisdom, divine wisdom? It is the essence of the contract that G-d entered with Am Yisrael at Mount Sinai. It is the legacy that our forefathers and foremothers have passed on to us. The Heaven and the Earth  are its eternal witnesses.

Torah study and its decree to hang on to Life through learning and discussing it, however, were not always easy and simple to come by for our People. There were times when Am Yisrael and the Jewish People were forbidden to engage in it. That is where our wisdom, our strong desire to cling to it and to Life came into play. It gave birth to the Haftarah.

The Torah, AKA “The  Five Books of Moses,” is divided into 52 Parashot, portions or segments, one for each week of the year. The Haftarah, on the other hand, is a section taken from the Prophets, one of the three parts of the Tanach. It is read at the conclusion of the Torah reading.

Though the origins of the reading of the Haftarah are shrouded in vagueness, the most common explanation is as follows.

In the year 168 B.C.E., Antiochus Epiphanes, the Hellenistic Greek king of the  Seleucid Empire, issued an edict forbidding Jews to read from the Torah. It was however, limited to the Five Books of Moses. How does one prevent slow death by suffocation that such a severance of once lifeline can bring about? The answer is part of the secret of Jewish survival.

In response, our wise sages instituted the custom that a certain section of the Prophets be read instead, a section where an idea that was related to the Torah reading that was slated for that week. Indirectly, the Torah lesson for each week was taught. Our People continued to subsist and endure by imbibing that which is essential to its survival

This is but one example of what it took to maintain Jewish steadiness and permanency. There are many more examples one could cite in order to highlight it. They are old, new, individual or national epics, painful and joyous sagas. Whatever they are, we are here. We will continue to cling to our Tree of Life. We will maintain our wonderful and wise tradition and hang on to Life. We will continue to do it with the same vigor and vivacity that very little and very few can extinguish, if ever.

Yisrael, why do I love you?

There are many reasons why I love you Yisrael. I could list at least sixty-eight, one for each year of your life. Let me name a few.

First and foremost, you are my birthplace, the miracle I call my Home. You are the fertile ground that nourishes my soul, the womb that remains connected to me simply because we refused to cut the umbilical cord. You are the dream I carried along with me, the place that was always with me wherever I wandered in a vast foreign land. You are the light that brightened up the path of my life’s journey during some of the darkest moments. You are my personal memories, present, past and future.

You are also the birthplace of Am Yisrael and our Jewish people. You are the fountainhead from which our forefathers drank the elixir of their everlasting Spiritual Life, the bosom that gathered our tears and the legacy that held and kept us alive for untold generations.

The gifts you yield and share with many are another reason myself and others love you. Whoever values civilization, progress and enlightenment holds you in the highest esteem. You are so tiny, yet such a giant when it comes to contributions that have helped shape the modern world and make it a safer, better place. You have given us Intel, Amdocs, Desalination, roof top solar hot water systems, the first Capsule endoscopy solution to record images of the digestive tract, the Iron Dome (which is probably one of the reasons why I am still here) and the world’s smallest DNA computing machine system, the smallest biological computing device ever constructed. And the list goes on and on.

Your name, Yisrael, though is probably one of the most important reasons I fall in love with you over and over again. I love its ring but most of all, I love what it stands for.

The name “Yisrael, first appears in the Torah, in the Book of Bresheet (AKA Genesis in its Hellenistic translation) Chapter 32 verse 29 “לֹא יַעֲקֹב יֵאָמֵר עוֹד שִׁמְךָ כִּי אִם-יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם-אֱ-לֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים וַתּוּכָל "  No longer shall your name be Yaakov, but Yisrael because you fought with G-d and people and you won.

It is the name that mirrors what we, Am Yisrael and you, Eretz Yisrael are all about. It holds our struggles, our pain, our losses and our eventual victory. It connects our ensanguined yet triumphant past to a hopeful, glorious and promising future. Despite all efforts to eradicate us, to reduce us to a spec on the pages of the history of mankind, we remained defiant, just like our forefather Yaakov, rose against all challenges and went from strength to strength. You are the fulfillment of the age old prophecy and blessing bestowed upon Yaakov by the angel of G-d.

You are Hatikvah, our Hope and as long as one Jewish soul continues to throb and one eye stares in the direction of Eretz Tzion V'rushalayim, we shall remain One. And that, in my book, is the definition of ETERNITY. 

Am Yisrael Chai!

As a Jew, I define myself in Hebrew only

                                                                   

 

Again, my ongoing efforts to educate people, mainly our fellow Jews, and insist that Jews and not others define us, has resulted in a barrage of attacks against me and evidently against other Jews who share similar desires and engage in similar efforts. I fear them not.

No, I will not apologize for being an Israeli Jew who wishes to stand up and fight for what I believe is our right. Moreover, it is our duty and obligation towards the millions of our fellow Jews and members of Am Yisrael who died throughout history precisely because they refused to let others define us. Their death was not and should never be in vain.

That is what I also teach my students.

Last week, one of them asked me why I spell the name of our Jewish Homeland as Yisrael and not Israel. I will share with you, dear readers, my lesson for that day.

Israel when written in Hebrew עיברית (Ivrit) the language of Am Yisrael, the language of our heritage, is spelled as יזרעאל which is how we spell the valley of Jezereel in the Northern part of Eretz Yisrael. That valley is ONLY one part of our Jewish Homeland. Additionally, it also means something totally different than what our forefathers intended for our state. It means in Hebrew, “G-d will sow”. The name Yisrael which is the correct English spelling of our Home has a totally different meaning.

The name “Yisrael, first appears in the Torah, in the Book of Bresheet (AKA Genesis in its Hellenistic translation) Chapter 32 verse 29 “לֹא יַעֲקֹב יֵאָמֵר עוֹד שִׁמְךָ כִּי אִם-יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם-אֱ-לֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים וַתּוּכָל "  No longer shall your name be Yaakov, but Yisrael because you fought with G-d and people and you won!.

Yes, that is the meaning of the name of our Jewish Homeland, not any other name given to us by any foreign conqueror, or any foreign language. We have a right to insist on it because a name is one of the most precious possessions a person, a nation, an entity has. No one has a right to violate it. The name Yisrael provides Hope and Continuity to us Jews. We have had to fight, will continue to have to fight but will always prevail. That is the promise that the name Yisrael holds

Hebrew is our language. If anyone wishes to address anything that is ours, be it Yahadoot יהדות  ( (also known by its Hellenistic/heathen version as Judaism), or any other concept that is part of who we are, I will insist that they address it in my language. You wish me to show you respect? If so, earn it by respecting me!

Oh and before anyone attacks me on that whether it is a senile senior person from down under or a young “ Zionist activist” from the southern part of the US or even someone who has been known to defraud the Australian social service system and now no longer resides there, let me reiterate, yet again, it is MY view!

And you know what the greatest victory is? My students agreed with me! What more could I, a teacher in Eretz Yisrael, ask for than raising a generation of Jews who are proud of their heritage and will not let others define them. I am blessed!

“Zionism,” the Hellenistic misapprehension of what Jews believe

        

                                                                                

This article was written together with Roger Froikin

We are tired of others defining us, Jews. We are dissatisfied with non-Jews trying time and again to tell us what we should believe in or not believe in. Moreover, we are fatigued of others interpreting our essence through their eyes, with modern day spectacles and using terms that are foreign to us, to our culture and to Hebrew, the only language that can and has defined the Jewish belief system.

Yes, I am referring to yet again, to the much discussed, used and abused term “Zionism.”

According to Merriman-Webster, the origin of suffix “ism” as in the term “Zionism” is “Middle English-isme, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French, partly from Latin – isma (from Greek) & partly from Latin.” None of these languages are even remotely related to Hebrew, the only language that has and should continue to define anything that is part of the Jewish world.

A Hellenistic and thus a heathen name has, unfortunately, been given to and is used to define a noble Jewish concept. A magnanimous several millennia old Jewish/Hebrew idea that expresses the strong connection that only Jews have had to Eretz Yisrael has been adapted by those who call themselves friends of the Jews, those who support the right of Jews for a Homeland in the Land of their forefathers

Make no mistake, we appreciate that support. We know that many have gone out on a limb to fight for Jewish right to make Herzl’s political movement an ongoing reality. Thank you.

We are not letting, however, Hellenism and foreign cultures define us. We cannot. Moreover, they cannot.

For generations, Jews have taught their children that the difference between Hellenism and Judaism was that the Hellenists, though they contributed to science and culture, were mostly interested in extolling sports and the beauty of the body and physical prowess and a narcissistic view of life while Judaism emphasized the intellectual pursuits, Torah, and community.

The problem is that this definition of Hellenism is not what so frightened or sages.  What they feared most was not that Jewish boys would go out and be sports fans, but that Hellenistic thoughts and definitions would invade and replace Jewish thoughts, conceptions, and definitions of Jewish history and literature and even of the Torah.

Hebrew is a Semitic language and cannot easily be translated into a European language because it constitutes a very different construction.  When one thinks in Hebrew, when one reads Torah in Hebrew, one thinks, subconsciously, in terms of word relationships and metaphorical meanings which add many dimensions to the text, Reading Torah in translation to Indo-European languages, losses all those constructive relationships subtle meanings, a loss of all of its essence.

It is noteworthy to mention that in the 4th century C.E., seventy-two Jewish scholars were coerced by the Greek King of Egypt, Ptolemy II Philadelphus to translate the Torah into Greek. This mistranslation is known as the Septuagint. Until today, we Jews mourn each year this this tragedy.

So, some might say, fine, learn Hebrew and read it in Hebrew.  But there is a problem our Sages recognized.  If we view the world through Hellenistic concepts, we also may misunderstand the meaning originally intended in the Hebrew.  If we learn Hebrew from an Indo-European language with its own history, we can be prone to misconstrue the text and its concepts.

Therefore, as the Sages feared, Hellenism’s invasion of Jewish culture changed our Jewish thinking patterns, changed how we defined even what was ours. 

“Zionism” and what we see is being done to it today is but one example of that.

Furthermore, we see some social media activists coming up with their own definition of the word. Moreover, they call upon others to do “Zionist” as if doing those “things” would define us Jews and what our beliefs stand for.

You know what?

You can call yourselves what you want. We cannot stop you. You are welcome to continue to use the Hellenistic use and interpretation of “Zionism.” Keep it as yours, Latin and Greek are your languages, not ours. The suffix “Ism” is part of your cultural heritage, not ours.

Hebrew is ours and we are proud of it. We are no longer “Zionists” because that twisted term that endeavors to describe what you believe we are is yours, not ours.  From now on, in our lexicon Roger and all Jewish males are a “Tsioni”  ציוני   and all Jewish females, a “Tsionit.”   ציוניתFrom now on, we will call our few millennia longing for Tsion ציון  (which you call “Zion”) “Tsionut,” ציונות.

We, as Jews, have earned it. For over two thousand years of sanguineous history, it is only we who have prayed in Hebrew towards Tsion. It is only we who, during all those years of suffering and pain, pledged in Hebrew “Next year in Jerusalem.” It is only we, Jews, who, while in exile from our Homeland, mourned in Hebrew we remembered Tsion and it is we, Jews, who vowed in Hebrew under the Chuppah, at the height of our joy never to forget Jerusalem.

Yes, we Jews cannot tell the world how to define what are Jewish concepts best expressed in Hebrew. We cannot tell them to stop trying either.  What we can do, however, is have the confidence and the right to define what is ours and in our own terms.   A slave people, a people colonized and persecuted by others for 2000 years might have to allow outsiders define us and impose their ways on us, but no more. That needs to come to an end, and as a free people, we, the Jewish people must reclaim what is ours, our property, our culture, our language, and our own definitions of ourselves, and that is “TSIONUT”