Thursday, 30 July 2020

Shabbat Nachamu





Shabbat Nachamu is the name of the first Shabbat after the Ninth of Av, which according to tradition, is when both Temples were destroyed. Its name is taken from Isiah 40:1, “Comfort, Comfort my People says your G-d,” which is the first verse of this week’s Haftarah

This Shabbat officially ends the three weeks of mourning which culminate with the fast of the ninth of Av. Its Parasha  aims at offering solace and consolation for the suffering our People endured as a result of their transgressions that preceded the destruction of the Temples.

I believe I first remember it being mentioned when I was seven years old. Though I am certain that “Shabbat Nachamu” had been mentioned many times before, it was only when I reached that age that I finally grasped their profound meaning.
For my parents and many other Jews, Shabbat Nachamu was the day on which they were liberated from the Nazi Death Machine. It ended the darkest chapter in our Jewish history.

Each time I heard them, and there were many, they scorched my Jewish essence forming yet another painful scar that refuses to heal.

As symbolic as the liberation of my parents and my unborn older brother which occurred on this Shabbat may be, I kept pondering on the reasons that brought about the destruction, Churban, which, incidentally, is what the Shoah is referred to in Yiddish, that befell them and their generation. What sins could my two wonderful parents have committed to have brought such a punishment upon them? What crimes could my young little cousins have possibly carried out before they perished in Ponar, I ask, as the waves of grief refuse to subside. I try to find some logic, some order, in the chain of “cause and effect,” in the great world that G-d once created for us.
Alas, no matter what, the answers evade me.

Instead of resuming to torment my soul, I have decided to focus on the future and the lessons that we could apply  towards it, lessons which our Jewish history has been trying so desperately to teach us.

As we are approaching the end of the period that is referred to as “between the straits” (bein hametsarim), the three weeks of mourning over the tragedies that befell our People over two thousand years ago, I look around me. I observe our People, “The People of the Book,” the ones who were destined to be “A Light unto the Nations,” their practice of our cherished values, or rather their lack thereof, I keep asking, have Jews learned anything from our sanguineous history?

We are still exercising vain hatred and continue to intensify that already deep divide among us, while our enemies continue to weave their web of design to destroy us. We adopt foreign customs, we name our children after foreign deities and worship the golden calf.

Am Yisrael and fellow Jews, time to wake up and look inside ourselves. This is where we shall find the answers to the why and the what that has befallen us.  Let us practice that which we gifted the world. It is time to shed off all masks and be true to ourselves first.

Let us console, support each other and unite during these hard and trying times. Let us defy all odds, pursue justice, and continue to live up to that which we are commanded to do and “Choose Life.” We owe it to ourselves  and to our future generations.

Better days are ahead of us and despite and in spite of it all, the People of Eternity is here to stay, in our Jewish Homeland, in Eretz Yisrael.

Am Yisrael Chai

Friday, 24 July 2020

We Are Fed Up.........








Dear friends,

I have decided to translate into English the following FB post, written in Hebrew by Tal Gilad. I have done it for the benefit of those among us who are new Olim, native English speakers who are exposes to the biased media and all those “mavins” who try to impress upon us that the Chinese Communist Party Virus, though released accidentally yet spread  around the world deliberately, is nothing bu a scare tactic by our leaders.

Shabbat Shalom padded with abundant health and the best of every blessing. 馃嚠馃嚤馃挏馃嚠馃嚤


Here it is.

“I am already tired of the nonsense. I am tired of each of our nine millions citizens is convinced that they are the only ones who know what is good and what needs to be done about the current health crisis (or any other issue). They and only they are the wisest and have all the information on everything since they read on the internet what someone said.

I am tired of hallucinatory
 conspiracy theories about the virus which  refer to it as a “fake plague,” a n international plot to try and control our privacy, where we are at any given moment as though Google and Facebook did not do it a long time ago and with our full and enthusiastic consent. Those who are not yet familiar  with the Google timeline is welcome to check. If anyone has forgotten where he urinated  two months ago, Google will remind them and will even draw a map of how they got there and how long they  urinated. They will also provide the exact amount in liters. An analysis of the colour is not yet available, but soon there will be, for sure.

I am fed up with those irresponsible  and impatient’ who refuse to let anyone “make decisions about them” since “the Spirit of Man” and their “Right” and BS, and they do not understand that they not only put themselves in harm’s way but also anyone they meet after, in their vocalism, their invincible young spirit and their fantastic immune system,’ endangered themselves. Don’t you honestly understand that you, in your foolishness, are a catalyst to the virus and cause more infected and the extension of the emergency guidelines?

We are tired of those who seriously believe that Netanyahu is responsible for the virus or uses it to take control or who knows what
 the hell else. How much empty space does one need to have in their skull to fill it up with such absurdities?
The entire world confronts the virus. Do you genuinely believe that millions of doctors, nurses, elected officials, leaders, members of the health system, including Arab  and Muslim states, all are employed by Netanyahu and Sarah?

Do you seriously believe that you know about the virus more than millions of doctors’ nurses, elected officials, leaders, and members of the health systems the world over? All of those are brainwashed, receive instructions or threats or are part of an international conspiracy and only you the underground smart-alecks know better?
Are you that thick? Are you honestly unable to, at least for a few months, able to follow emergency guidelines and sit quietly, for heaven’s sake?

We are so fed up with the nonsense. So fed up."

Friday, 17 July 2020

Yes to Brit Mila Simply Because We Are Jews



This article was written by Tal Gilad in Hebrew and was published first in Walla on November 29th, 2013, during a public debate that was raging over on the subject of Brit Milah  which ensued following a fine imposed on a woman who refused to have her son circumcised. It was translated into English by Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks.

I am circumcised. My son is circumcised. Anyone that I know in my close surrounding is circumcised. I presume that with certainty even though I never checked. Not one of us remembers his circumcision as a horrible and traumatic event since we were only eight days then and no one remembers anything of that age.

A baby eight days old does not possess enough awareness to be afraid of what they are about to do to him, develop trauma or treat this pain as no more than a momentary unpleasant discomfort. He does not fear the consequences it might bear on his sex life, on his masculinity or his male identity. He does not see it as an attack on his legal rights as a human being. He does not know anything about any of these issues. All he knows is that it hurts during that moment and then it stops and that is all because he is merely eight days old. That is why the ceremony is performed when he is eight days old.
I do not wish to enter the issue of the penalty which the rabbinical court decreed. I do not know all the details and wish to avoid the issue of whether any institution has the jurisdiction to impose that. That is not the topic.

Brit Mila (circumcision) is a directive that Jews have been following for four thousand years. It does not cause any medical problems (possibly the opposite) and poses no national or personal tragedy that is imprinted on  the memory of our genetic code.

I need to confess that I, too, was nervous during the Brit Milah of my son. I also remember that I felt like hitting everyone. The bottom line, however, is that we are Jews and it would be more stupid and selfish if, because of my belligerence he will have to face this predicament of whether to do or not do it at the age of twenty, with all the fears that were mentioned earlier which are nonexistent at the age of eight days. I do not wish to mention another faith which performs this ceremony when the boy is thirteen, when one is fearful and is forced to go through that. This way, it is one unpleasant minute for the baby, one nervous minute for the parents and over.

It is by far less worse than other events that the child undergoes in his life, starting with birth, a scary experience in itself, through ear aches, teething aches, inoculations, fear and sadness during those moments when a determined brave mother who refuses to circumcise her son goes out to have a good time because it is her right and no one will decide for her. There are other more traumatic events in a person’s life such as, the first day in the nursery, kindergarten and a whole host of occurrences which are far less pleasant than Brit Milah which one overcomes and continues to grow.

And no contentious organization sees in it anything that hurts the child’s rights.
That is so, perhaps since it does not carry the intoxicating  scent of was against religious imposition and no one can bask in the words, “primitive ritual.”

By the way, interesting to notice that part of the primitive and cruel People that lives in America do the same to their children without the noise and the commotion and human rights. Oh, those cruel Gentiles
馃槈

Friday, 26 June 2020

Are We Completely Crazy? The Life of a Terrorist is Not Sacred







This article, written by Tal Gilad, first appeared in Hebrew on February 2, 2017, at the end of the trial of Elor Azaria. It was published in “Makor Rishon.” It was translated into English by Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks.


It is difficult to write about Elor Azaria. The entire affair is an absurd dance, so hallucinatory, frustrating, and depressing, in a way that one does not know where to commence. The point that continues to echo in my head, though, is one that seems to be taken out of a horror show in hell, was to hear the judges say that Elor attacked the “Sanctity of Life” principle. Throttled Mother Theresa during helping the poor. The Sanctity of the Life of a terrorist?

As far as we, Yisraelis, are concerned - and no, we do not have the privilege of seeing it from a different point of view -  it is  irrational and unethical for us to practice any sensitivity to the “sanctity” of life of people for whom we are the object of desire for obliteration, who hold a declared ideology on the subject and even arrived with the goal of  putting that ideology to practice.

Perhaps, it is necessary to explain that which is self-explanatory. A terrorist is not a
criminal, not even a POW or a bomber of the common kind. Even a law offender acts within the boundaries of the society of which he is a part. He committed a crime and for that specific issue, he must be punished within his community, when the goal of the punishment is, mostly, to correct or deter. It is meant to bring matters back to the course of law and order.

In the more sever circle, one can find treason, espionage etc., despite the fact that they do not always involve death directly, these are acts which are aimed, intentionally and maliciously, against an  entire entity, an attack on security interests and endangering an entire state and its citizens. The punishments, in such cases, are severe in most countries, generally a long sentence or even the death penalty. Still, vaguely, there is a framework of abiding by the rules of the game, a dirty crime, where there is, nonetheless, room for a legal debate and both sides are equal in the eyes of the law.

A bit further in the vague realms, dwell the “classic” terrorists, such as the Irish underground, or the anarchists who used to blow up coffee shops. If we analyze their horrific deeds, we would still discover  that they stem from some kind of a twisted ideology of “destroying in order to build a new society” or in order to banish the British, where the civilians that were hurt were not the target itself, or as means of spreading fear. The Irish underground did not have a set doctrine according to which one has to kill all of England and annihilate its citizens.

A terrorist who attacks Yisrael does not belong to any of these circles. He is from a different world. His sole goal is to destroy the whole organism, anyone and anything that is in it, including the lawmakers, the laws and the entire body of voters, for or against, including those who are fighting for his rights and his sanctity of life or defend him in court, including his children and their babies. He is coming to murder us all because in his eyes, it is the right and educational step to take. There are no rules and no fair play, one should only kill, and we are not the means, we are the target. Morally, as far as we are concerned, he is not supposed to have any rights, there is nothing to fix, deter or understand.

Intra-galactic values

This is analogous to extra-terrestrials that come to annihilate humanity to make frozen food out of it or just because they dislike Earth. They do not try to scare; they are not trying to harm the national interests or to free anyone from “the Occupation.” They come to kill, and for the purpose of killing, the more, the better and we do not interest them beyond that. We are not obliged by any intra-galactic values. There is not much that we can do other than defend ourselves and kill them in return. There is no Geneva Convention for devouring extra-terrestrials, they will gobble and package for takeaway including Geneva.

Clearly the Palestinians see it differently. We have no problem with the Palestinians admiring the terrorist and naming city squares after him, in the same manner that the extra-terrestrials will gurgle songs of praise for the one brave member who traveled lightyears  merely to bring them back fresh humans from earth. It is not my business, nor my role to educate either the Palestinians or the extra-terrestrials. It is a situation of a total clash of interests and irrelevant on who is right. It does not belong here. In such a situation, I am entirely duty bound to my interest. As a Jew in Yisrael, I have no right to view it from any other angle, it would be irresponsible of me towards my children. And, please, be wise enough to distinguish between the readiness of a large portion of the public to principally understand that which they see as national aspirations of the Palestinians and the  twisted recognition of the willingness of terror organizations to murder us all and the sense of their ”Sanctity of Life” concept. The first is a legitimate discussion, the second, never.
 
Somehow, the feeling that whoever is sensitive to the sanctity of life of the one who comes to slaughter him and his family, is a super moral kind, has taken roots. A heavenly creature with a halo of light and a soprano church choir accompany his appearance at our gate. He is not, he is an irresponsible idiot and the last thing one can say about him is that he is righteous because his fake morality endangers others. It is not morality, it is an infantile narcissism of the kind of “wow, I am so good.” These are two entirely different creatures. One has practical and educational values, the other is a monster in a sheep’s skin.

Elor killed a terrorist. He merely helped a dying terrorist reach the seventy-two virgins, fifteen minutes earlier. He broke the law, true, and if someone breaks the law, he should be punished. So keep him confined to his base over the weekend and warn him that next time he should conduct and legal verification of death procedure and not wait eleven minutes. But stop pumping yourselves with the “sanctity of life,” of a terrorist. You have entirely gone mad; you lost your compass.

Wednesday, 17 June 2020

Jewish Folklore and One of Its Lessons



Disclaimer: the opinion expressed in this article are those of its writer ONLY. It is written from the Jewish point of view and its belief system. One of the courses I attend at Bar-Ilan University is Yiddish language and Literature.  A few lessons ago, we read a story by Y.L. Peretz. It is entitled “Three presents.” The story tells the adventures of a departed soul that goes up in front of the Heavenly Court. Since according to Jewish belief, it is only one’s behaviour on earth which determines whether their soul will enter Paradise or Ghenna, its good deeds are weighed against the bad ones.
Unfortunately for the soul in question, its transgressions slightly outweighed its acts of kindness. One of the angels had mercy on it and decided to give the soul another opportunity. It was sent back to earth and told to return with three presents which would please the Court.
The soul roamed the earth for many generations. One night, it noticed, through an open window, a Jewish man being robbed. The man pleaded with the burglars to take all his silver, gold and precious stones while clinging to a little box, refusing to part with it. The robbers were intrigued. Thinking that the box contained some treasure, they killed the man. As he fell down weltering in his blood, the content of the box spilled out. It was holy dirt from Eretz Yisrael. The soul took a morsel of the soil soaked with the Jew’s blood and brought it up.
The first present was accepted. On its second trip to earth, the soul found itself at the center of an ancient European town. There, a beautiful Jewish woman who was accused of tainting and desecrating Easter holy day by her mere presence on the street at that time, was put on trial. Next to her, a wild horse was being held by ten men. Her sentence was to be tied by her hair to the horse’s tail and dragged through the streets of the town. She had one request only. Much to the surprise and amazement of all present, she asked for a few pins. Her wish was granted. As the horse galloped through the streets, the soul noticed how the young woman was struggling to fasten the rim of her dress to her flesh in order to keep her modesty and prevent her nakedness from being exposed. Surreptitiously, the soul went down and detached a red bloody pin from her dying body. The second present was graciously accepted. “One more present,” thought the soul, as it made its way down to earth for the third time. “If all souls were to be weighed as I was,” she thought in anguish, “the world would be full of lost souls trying to make amends to their wickedness. And what would G-d do then?” she wondered. “Will He bring the world back to chaos?”
Steeped in her thoughts, she suddenly noticed a fortified prison in an isolated area. It was surrounded by black walls. Next to it, she noticed two rows of soldiers, each holding a whip.
Between them was doomed to walk the convicted, a pious Jewish man, wearing a shabby shirt and on his half shaved head, an old yarmulke.
And his crime?
No one was certain. Was it murder, theft or perhaps a blood libel?
As he was pushed between the two rows of soldiers, they were each lashing him incessantly, smiling and wondering how long the victim would hold on. Yet, he remained defiant. The whips whistled in the air wrapping the Jew’s torn body like snakes as the blood gushed out. But he kept on walking.
One of the whips, suddenly, hit the yarmulke which dropped to the ground.
When the victim noticed that, he stood still contemplating his next move. “I cannot walk bare headed, no matter what” he decided. He turned back, picked the yarmulke, put it on his head and resumed his harsh sentence until he fell and expired.
The soul approached the fallen man and took a blood soaked thread from the yarmulke. The third present was welcome…… the soul was redeemed. We can each draw our own lesson from this sad and heart wrenching tale. My lesson is that in our Jewish tradition, as our folklore well reflects it, redemption and the world to come are not handed nor guaranteed. They must be earned. It is only up to us, how we carry ourselves and what we do in this world. We, and no one else, are the only ones who are held responsible for the outcome of our deeds. Not only does our mature and enlightening Jewish tradition command us to choose life, we have to do justice, perform acts of kindness and hope that they would please G-d, and grant us a place among the righteous of the world.



Friday, 12 June 2020

Defaming the Land of Milk and Honey





The Cambridge Dictionary defines “Defamation” as “the act of harming someone’s reputation by saying or writing bad things about them.”

Already in our Torah, we encounter such an act. One example that comes to mind is when Miriam and Aaron speak ill of Moshe after he marries a Cushite woman (Numbers 12:1) for which Miriam was severely punished.

This week’s Parasha, B’Shalach, is another example. This time, the subject of defamation is not another human being but Eretz Yisrael.

In it, Moshe names twelve men, each from one of the twelve tribes to go and tour the Land of Cana’an prior to conquering it. He gives them specific issues to investigate. He charges them with the duty to survey the Land, examine it and see whether it is good or bad. He also instructs them to study the size and the strength of the People inhabiting it.

After forty days, the twelve emissaries or spies as the Tanach refers to them, return and report their observations. They bring along with them samples of beautiful fruit from Eretz Yisrael which prove the quality of the Land. They also describe it as a “Land flowing with milk and honey.” At the same time, however, they speak harshly about it when describing the might of its dwellers and as “a Land that eats up its inhabitants.” The scouts all, except for Yehoshua and Calev, conclude that Am Yisrael could not go into the Land as the People that dwells there is mightier than it.

The question that is begging to be asked is why do Yehoshua and Calev see Eretz Yisrael through different eyes? After all, all twelve emissaries observe and experience the same things?

 They all start their description of the Land in a positive way. However, unlike Yehoshua and Calev, the other ten switch to a negative portrayal of the powerful People and the fortified cities.

According to the Babylonian Talmud Sotah 35a, this is the way slanderers speak. “They begin with flattering and end with evil.”

Slander, defamation and badmouthing aim at separating people, drawing a rift, and deepening the divide among them. The slanderer observes a situation generalizes and embellishes its bad aspects while sharing their interpretations of it as a permanent and constant element. That is the nature of slander.

In this Parasha, defamation is aimed at separating between Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael.

Upon hearing the emissaries’ words, Am Yisrael bursts out in anger, complaints, and rebellion. They refuse to listen to Moshe, Aaron, Yehoshua and Calev who try to convince them that the Land is good and that one should trust G-d. Alas, the people are angry, assail them and prepares to hurl stones at them.

Unfortunately, slander of the “Land Flowing with Milk and Honey” did not stop with the ten of the twelve scouts that Moshe sent. They were, then, what organizations such as BDS, B’Tselem or Breaking the Silence are today. These are bonded by a desire to separate between the modern-day state of Yisrael and the rest of the world.

Like Moshe’s emissaries, members of these organizations see a relatively young state that has turned the desert into fertile land. They are witnessing its great contributions to world civilization. Not even they can ignore Yisrael as a world power in technology, medicine and other fields.

True, Yisrael, like any other normal state, especially one that is surrounded by those who wish to annihilate it and needs to fight for survival on a daily basis, is not perfect. Yet, these organizations choose to overlook its great aspects and elect to pick a handful of its bad ones, put them under the microscope, embellish and amplify them, sometimes beyond proportion, and use them to project it in a bad light. They use any means and any tactics to falsify and distort facts, misrepresent it and dis-inform a na茂ve world of the true and great facets of the Jewish state. Defamation is their middle name.
Finally, it is important to mention that in the Tanach account of the episode of the spies, all but Yehoshua and Calev are punished later. These ten become the victims of a plague and die nameless and in eternal disgrace in the wilderness.

Shabbat Shalom and every blessing


Tuesday, 26 May 2020

Shavuot - An Ode to G-d








This article was written by Tal Gilad in Hebrew and translated into English by Bat-Zion Susskind-Sacks.

Disclaimer: the essay below represents the point of view of the writer only. It is not intended to offend anyone or aimed at entering debates over one’s religious beliefs or scientific point of view. He solely expresses his thoughts. Nothing more. Thank you.

Shavuot, the Holy Day on which the Torah was given to Am Yisrael, is here.
True, every religious belief or faith needs to be respected. I trust, however, that over one issue there is no dispute, Judaism is the source for the other widely practiced faiths – Christianity and Islam. At school they taught us that the uniqueness of Judaism is that it is the first monotheistic faith. They also explained to us the difference between the belief in one god and that in many gods. I feel that this is missing the core of the issue.

It was also said about Akhenaten that he was a monotheist since he believed that the sun is the only god. New studies raise the possibility that he was merely “substituting” the previous sun god without rescinding the others, or that he only diminished their significance. It not that crucial. The bottom line is that it is no big deal to believe in one god instead of a few. OK, one works alone, the other delegates, what difference does it make?

The wisdom and distinctiveness of Judaism, especially its earlier debut is that Judaism is a giant leap in the  perception of G-d, not only is He One and Only, He has no shape, He is all-powerful and infinite and the G-d of all of us. I stress, of ALL. He chose Am Yisrael, but He is also the G-d of all nations, including the enemies of Yisrael. Whether they choose to believe in him or nor, is their preference.

This stems from the understanding that one god cannot be restricted. The moment he is your god only, he becomes something terribly forceful. In other words, if you build a tower which reaches the heavens or if you train at the gym long enough or bring in the air force, you will be stronger than him.

If he has a shape, he is limited. If there is something that preceded him, as was the case with the Greek gods, he is limited.

Hence, one cannot utter His name, since the moment you give Him one, you limit Him to words and letters. He must, therefore, be omnipotent, He is everything, omnipresent and invariably everywhere, our G-d in Heaven and Earth.

Incidentally, it does not matter whether the world has been existing for 13 billion years or six thousand years. Both are numbers that enable us to quantify a concept that we cannot grasp since it is perpetual. Just as one says “god” to introduce a word to something self-explanatory, a notion which cannot be articulated, so one names a number in order to clench on to something. Just as the decree that north is up, and south is down. Why? Just because. I have swerved a bit. That is a different subject altogether, but in fact, still related.

With all due respect and sincerely, I
am not belittling or lessening the significance and stature of Christianity and Islam.  On the contrary, they spread the belief in one god and thus contributed their share in raising the whole of mankind to a higher spiritual level. But the basic perceptions about the essence of G-d originate in Judaism. The rest are a product of the original and thy do not deny it. It is not a problem to construct a wagon. The problem is to invent the wheel since it forces one to exit the thinking mode to which they were used. The inventor is also the one who understands their invention and knows all the stages that led  them to that understanding, as opposed to someone who received it ready-made and applies to it all that they know and are familiar with in their world. Jesus was a Jew and probably never considered himself a god. His followers, however, conceived the idea of the holy trinity, partly in order to make their faith more accessible and more concrete. Therefore, observant Jews do not enter a church. In their eyes, the holy trinity is a form of idolatry. After all, how can one divide that which is infinite, formless, and baffling into three? Which three?

One can, of course, find numerous hints and aspects of “accessibility” in our writings starting  the creation of the world where G-d, allegedly, says something or rests on the seventh day since he was tired, through “let us create a man in our image” and more, there was a need for visualization. But the <<basic>> notion in Judaism is that “G-d is One,” stressing the principle that there cannot be more than one that is endless and everything. Nothing could be more than endless and all. This is the central principle in Judaism and if one does not accept it, one does not understand its essence. After all, it is inconceivable that Moshe would come down from Mount Sinai and say, “OK, the golden calf is also a god,” merely to keep everyone happy and quiet.

“We shall do, and we shall hear,” which Am Yisrael took upon itself upon receiving the Torah, is also derived from this sentiment. After all, that “all” cannot give anything bad, impossible. He will not negate the universe and everything He created, just like as in the “know it all” question, “can G-d create a stone that He cannot lift?” Funny. Can the heavyweight lifting world champion raise and hold in the air the chair that he is sitting on? No. The contradiction is not in the answer but in the question.

The Ten Commandments are ten basic principles for living in the company of human beings, that which distinguishes between humans and animals. Their essence is Empathy. The wise Hillel summarized it “do not do unto others that which is hateful to you, the rest is commentary, go and learn.” Empathy is civilization, give and take, karma, flow of energy, call it whatever you wish. Has G-d given them directly to Moshe in a wrathful baritone voice? What difference does it make?

The funny thing is that in the desperate efforts to find a meaning to that which has none, researchers raised the hypothesis that there was no need for the world to be created, it has always existed (even Aristo claims that), which means that they believe that there is something primordial which has no creator, is infinite, has no shape and no size, that everything in it is conducted with a fixed and balanced amount of energy which
cannot be subtracted by one tiny bit or else all will be chaotic.

In simple words, it is not G-d, but G-d. I reached the conclusion that just as the various religious leaders, astral physicists reach a certain point where they themselves do not understand their theories and move on to esoteric terms. And if one questions them, they define that person as ignorant and mindless.

So, here is another unique aspect of Judaism. We shall do and we shall hear. We accept our inability to understand. It is always great to learn and widen one’s horizons and it is not a shame to accept that there are issues which are beyond our understanding. This, also, has wisdom and spiritual eminence.