Keeping the Eye on the Ball

If one looks at any successful organization, it seems to me that one quality stands between it and its less prosperous competitors: focus. I will illustrate this with two Jewish examples.
The Jewish example is Chabad Lubavitch. Think about it for a moment. Fifty years ago they were a small Chasidic clan. Their rebbes had, over the centuries, produced a couple of influential books, but overall they were nowhere in the league of Ger or Belz, for example. Today, while still not the most numerous clan in the Chasidic world, they are a multi-billion dollar organization easily the best known Chasidic clan and the most influential. What happened to change their status?
The answer is simple: they had a leader, the Rebbe, z"l, who took the movement and focused it on a singular goal. His dream was to bring Moshiach to the world through the dissemination of Chabad philosophy and the ultimate takeover of world Torah Jewry. He spent decades building a "brand", convincing countless Jewish communities and organizations that his version of Judaism was the authentic one, that his interpretations of Torah and the future history of the world were the authoritative ones, and he raised an army over two generations of shlichim who were brainwashed into believing in this goal and working towards it with all their power.
Now, take a step back and look at what this philosophy has morphed into today. Grown men who believe the world is flat, because the Rebbe said so, who believe the Rebbe himself is still alive and up in Heaven guiding world events and just waiting to come back as Moshiach. Their beliefs defy Jewish law, they defy physical reality, and they continuously triumph over their ideological opponents. Why? Because they keep their eye on the ball. They have a goal and no side interference is going to prevent them from moving towards it.
As a result, their opponents flail at the wind and they keep going from strength to strength.
The second example is the Agudat Yisrael, as exemplified by their premiere PR hack, Rav Avi Shafran. Like him or hate him, you have to admire the guy's stamina. No matter what's happening in the outside world, Rav Shafran continues week after week to create the illusion he is seeking to foist on others. His goal? To convince the world that the Chareidi community is the ultimate expression of Judaism, that it is the only legitimate form of Torah observance and that it can trace itself back to Har Sinai itself. He further wishes us to believe there is no spousal abuse in the Jewish community, no drug use, no pedophilia in their Yeshivos and that the Rubashkins are decent folks who ran an upright slaughterhouse. It doesn't matter that the truth is against all these beliefs. He has his eye on the ball too, and he doesn't let detractors get in his way. With only one exception, he never backtracks or corrects what he says, and he never, ever enters into arguments with his opponents for fear that his agreeing to hear their side might imply that the other side has a legitimacy he does not wish to provide it with. Like I said, you might like him or hate him, but you can't ignore him and his success.
Which brings me to this blog.
(No, I'm not about to crown myself as the Shvantzer Rebbe or engage in a takeover of the Jewish world.)
When I originally started blogging, I had two goals for this forum. One was to share my personal philosophy regarding Jewish matters, share divrei Torah I'd come up with, etc. The other was to comment on news events in Israel and the Jewish world.
Unfortunately over the last few months I've become distracted. I have allowed myself to be diverted into areas I really don't care to be in and enter into arguments I really have no interest in fighting. I have attempted to support blogs of people I disagree with in order to help them build a hit count only to be labelled with the most foul terms or be called a terrible person for challenging their ill-thought opinions. And I've decided that enough is enough with that.
I am going to work on bringing the original focus back to this blog. I'm posting to share my thoughts with people and engage in respectful discussion. If you don't like the content you see, it's a free blogsphere, go elsewhere. If you disagree and want to discuss it, by all means do so. Hopefully with this new focus, and by keeping my eye on the ball, I can return this blog to where it's supposed to be.
Thank you.

How I Make a Living

So yesterday I have these patients come in. (All names have been changed to protect the stupid). Grandma, mom (who's 17) and little Billy, who's 2. The complaint is that Billy's bum hurts. He's been complaining about it intermittently for a couple of weeks. So I ask: what's the concern today? And mom, bouncing Billy on her lap looks at him and says "Tell him: 'my bum hurts!'"
So I look at mom and say "Wait, it's your bum, or his?" with a joking smile on my face. And to her credit, mom gets it and goes "No, his bum!"
And then grandma looks over and says to her daughter: "Wait, your bum hurts too?"

The Dilemma

So here's the story. There's this one meshulach who comes to my door every couple of months, asking for money to support poor families in Montreal and Tosh, a chasidic 'burb just north of Montreal.
He comes in full regalia, with the black felt hat with a round upturned brim, the long curly peyod down past his shoulders and the long black coat. He refuses to speak Hebrew because it's loshon kodesh and he is very much against Zionism of any kind because the Satmar Rebbe says Zionism is bad and if he said it, Moshe Rabeinu, a"h, might as well have put it into Sefer Devarim.
So for a long time I've been giving him cheques. Fine, I have a principle that anyone who comes with an open hand gets it filled. But then something happened.
We had an Israeli family in town and he knocked at their door too. Before giving him anything, the Israeli man asked him a simple question: If a Dati Leumi family came to you for help, would you give them money?
The answer was a simple: "No, Zionism is wrong and we believe these people are sinning by supporting it so we would not give them money."
Now, kudos to the guy for his honesty, especially for telling it to an Israeli and naturally the guy closed his wallet and told the meshulach to get lost but it got me thinking, seeing as I'm a Dati Leumi and all.
The Torah gives us two very difficult mitzvos to perform: thou shalt not revenge and thou shalt not take a grudge.
On the face of it, the value of these mitzvos to help create a functional society cannot be overstated. But did you ever stop and think about how hard not holding a grudge can be?
Think about my case, for example. Knowing that if our positions were reversed, he would leave me to die in the gutter I should still give him the cheque the next time he comes. After all, to withhold it would be saying "I'm not going to help you because you wouldn't help me", clearly a case of taking revenge.
The alternative, to hand him the cheque and say "Here, I'm a better Jew than you because even though I think you and your Satmar friends are totally on the wrong track and a bunch of sonei Yisrael, I will still help you." That would be not holding a grudge.
But then what do I do, knowing what I know about him? I can't simply sit there, listen to his shpeil and not think about how giving him money shows that I'm better than him.
So I'm asking: any suggestions?

Public Announcement

In order to clear up some recent confusion about my identity, I would like to once again clarify who I am:

I'm a mythical hero from the "The Unending War" trilogy who was granted great power in the battle against the Undead Overlord only to misuse it and wind up defeated. The lesson: The battle is not always to the mighty, nor the race to the swift, but that's the way to bet.

This means I am not:

SJ, although I have a good idea what meds would be good for him
OTD, although I think he's my biggest fan and does lots of great advertising for this site
Ari, although I agree with him a lot
Sarah and Richard Feldman from mainstreamjew's blog

I'm also not a superhero. It's "mythical warrior" for those not paying attention. There's a world of difference between the two, the outfit for one thing...

Thank you for your attention.

Whither the North American Day School

One of the most frequent complaints one hears from religious parents (and a non-insignificant number of non-religious ones) is about the high cost of tuition for Jewish day schools.

Admittedly, Jewish day schools are, like non-Jewish ones, expensive. But the difference is that in the non-Jewish population it is usually only the upper levels with the income to support it that use the private school system. Within the Jewish community, the desire for a Jewish day school education is not affected by one's place in the economic strata. As a result, the financial burden on many Jewish families is incredible, especially the ones with many children in the system all at the same time.

Is it any wonder, then, that people are talking about how the system is starting to collapse? This article from The Jewish Week openly questions whether the current model is sustainable:

It’s time to recognize that, with the collapse of the economy, the American Jewish day school model is breaking, if not already broken.
We have to deal with a new reality, and that calls for revisiting and reassessing the sacred cows surrounding how we approach the education of our children — from pedagogical, social and financial points of view.
In future columns, I hope to deal with the range of efforts being undertaken in our community to deal with this crisis. For now, let’s focus on a few central facts:
- An American Jewish community obsessed with its survival has determined through numerous studies that the most successful means of maintaining Jewish identity and affiliation among young people is through a sustained Jewish day school education.
- The increasingly prohibitive costs of such an education, the lingering perception that day schools are primarily for the Orthodox, and the strongly held belief that the separation of church and state would be harmed if government provided tuition relief for parochial school families, has kept the issue from becoming a priority on our national agenda.
- In the traditional community, the belief that public schools and Hebrew schools are to be avoided at all costs has kept us from using our imagination and inventiveness in responding to a new, perhaps permanent, landscape of limited financial resources.
We need to think on a communal level which values and lifestyles we are willing to sacrifice and which are most important to keep.
Loyal day school families, long faced with financial hardships in meeting rising tuition costs, cannot assume that God, the schools or grandparents will provide somehow.

While I agree with most of Mr. Rosenblatt's points, I do not agree that the current model is unaffordable. First of all, the economic collapse is not expected to be prolonged. Many major economists are now predicting that the recessesion ended 2 months ago. Anyone who started investing in the stock market in March is now 30% richer. Industry is starting to recover and banks are lending again. Within a couple of years, people will be talking about the big, bad recession of 2008/9 even as they praise the good times that will "never end". Therefore, any desire to reshape the day school system based on the current economic situation is not reasonable.

But more importantly, even if this collapse were to have been prolonged, I can cynically note that I don't think it has to affect the Jewish school system in a critical way. The money is there, only it's being spent in the wrong places.

Don't believe me? How many $100 000 weddings took place in large, affluent Jewish communities last year? How many $50 000 bar mitzvos? How many "monster homes" are being built? How many fancy cars get parked in the shul parking lot on Friday afternoon? How many $2000 sheitls get sold each year?

Someone is paying out all this money. The question is: Why are they buying materialistic goods they don't actually need and not dedicating it to saving the Jewish educational system? After all, for Jews education is the number one priority when it comes to guaranteeing our future.

Perhaps what is needed isn't so much a rethink of the system but a rethink of where we place our disposable dollers.

Seven Arabic Children

SEVEN
ARABIC
CHILDREN
a play for Israel
Garnel Ironheart

No children appear in the play. The speakers are adults, the parents and if you
like other relations of the children. The lines can be shared out in any way you
like among those characters. The characters are different in each small scene as
the time and child are different. They may be played by any number of actors. All the actors must be smoking but if asked if they are smokers, they must deny it.

1
Tell him it’s a game
Tell him it’s very serious
You must frighten him so he knows what’s at stake
Tell him they’ll kill him for being here
Tell him it’s important to be kill them first
Tell him she’ll have pita and humus if he’s good
Tell him to practice firing the rife.
Tell him they’ll be back soon.
Tell him to come out when he hears the triumphant shouting
Don’t frighten him
Tell him to come out when he hears “We’ve killed the Jews!”
Tell him there will be a big party.
Tell him we’ll do it again and again.
Tell him something about the Jews
Tell him they’re stealing our land
Tell him we have to kill them first
Tell him they’ll go away if we attack them enough
Tell him we can make them go away if we keep shooting at them
By the grace of Allah

2
Tell him this is a photograph of her grandmother, her uncles and
me
Tell him that the Zionists killed her uncles
Don’t tell her they were killed attacking the Zionists in the first place
Tell him they were killed in cold blood
You must frighten him.
Tell him his grandmother was clever
Don’t tell him what they did
Tell him she was brave
Tell him she taught me how to make pita
Don’t tell him how his grandfather sold the land
Tell him the Jews stole it instead.
Tell him more when he’s older.
Tell her there were Zionists who hated Arabs
Tell him over and over
Tell him we can still kill them and take back the land we sold them
Tell him the Europeans sent them here because they were sick of them
Tell them the world hates us but Allah loves us so we will triumph
Tell him more when he’s older
Tell him it was before he was born that they stole our land
Don’t tell him there’s any question of not getting it back.
Tell him dead or alive Allah will avenge him
Tell him his grandmother would be proud of him.

3
Don’t tell him we’re going for ever
Tell him he can write to his friends, tell him his friends might come with us
Tell him it’s only for a short while
Tell him we’re just waiting for our brothers to wipe the Jews out
Tell him it’s the land Allah gave us
Tell him their religion is all lies and ours is all truth.
Tell him his great great great great lots of greats grandad lived
there
Don’t tell him they used to live in Iraq and only came here a few years ago
Tell him, of course tell him, tell him that the Zionists drove us out and that our
country is waiting for us to come home
Don’t tell her we’ll be staying in this camp forever.
Tell him of course he likes it here but he’ll like it there even
more
Tell him it’s an adventure
Tell him that the Zionists won’t be able to kill her there
Tell him he’ll have new friends
Tell him he can take her toys
Don’t tell him that we ran because our brothers told us to
Tell him he can be a shahid some day
Tell him about Mecca and Medina
.
4
Don’t tell him who they really are
Tell him something
Tell him they’re European and that the other Europeans kicked them out
Tell him about how they invented this thing called “Holocaust” and used it to extort
Billions from the other Europeans
Tell him they live in our homes they stole from us
Tell him this wasn’t their home
Tell him they’re going away as soon as our brothers regroup and attack again
Tell him they hate him and want to kill him
Tell him to be careful.
Don’t tell him that we ran when our brothers told us to get out of the way lest we
Be caught in the battle
No but don’t tell him our brothers lost the war and now we’re stuck here.
No but don’t tell that our brothers now won’t let us leave the camps, that we have to stay
Here until they can kill the Zionists.
Tell him not to be frightened
Don’t tell him he can’t play with the children
Tell him they have plenty of friends and family
Tell him for miles and miles all round they have lands of their own that the Jews stole
Tell him again this is our promised land.
Don’t tell him that the Jews also lived here, that they had a kingdom and Temple here because
Our people left the deserts of Arabia.
Don’t tell him that the Jews never left.
Tell him maybe we can share until we’re strong enough to drive them out
Don’t tell him that!

5
Tell him we won
Don’t tell him how we started the fight.
Tell him his brother’s a hero
Don’t tell him how we lost.
Tell him how big their armies were
Tell him how we almost turned them back but that they were deceptive.
Tell him we’re fighters even though we’re still in these camps and the Zionists
Are still on our land.

6
Don’t tell him
Don’t tell him the trouble about the hospital
Tell him it’s okay to steal their cars, they stole our land
Tell him they steal our water, our land, our air
Don’t tell him anything about the pollution we put in the water.
Don’t tell him about the belt
Don’t tell him not to want to wear the belt
Don’t tell him what it’ll do when he pushes the button
Tell him it’s a fashion statement
Tell him it look good on him
Don’t tell him about the queues at the checkpoint
Don’t tell him about how the soldiers check everyone
Tell him to walk slowly, casually
Tell him to walk to where they are standing and sitting
Tell him not to say anything to them
Tell him it’s for the glory of Allah and our people
Don’t tell him about how they’re innocent. None of them are innocent
Tell him how they stole our land, how they killed our children and raped our women
Don’t tell him they’re civilians. They are all soldiers, even their children
Tell him they poison our waters
Don’t tell him that.
Don’t tell him that bombing cafes is wrong
Tell him that his friends all want to bomb cafes
Tell him to be careful so he won’t get caught.
Don’t frighten him.
Tell him the wall was their idea and we did nothing to deserve it
Don’t tell him how we threatened to drive them into the see
Tell him they want to take our blood for their Passover crackers.
Tell him about how they control the banks and the US Congress
Tell him about how many virgins he will get in Heaven.
Don’t tell him that
Tell him we will endure
Tell her we are blessed by Allah
Tell her they don’t deserve anything except violence
Tell them we want peace, but only in English
Tell him to say he’s going to visit a sick relative.

7
Tell him he should stand in their way
Tell him the schools were closed so he can go fire rockets at the Zionists
Tell him that the Zionists will kill him if they catch him.
Tell him the rockets will scare and intimidate the Jews
Do frighten him , then blame the Jews.
Tell him that many of us were killed, that it was a massacre
Tell him their army is slaughtering our men and raping our women
Don’t tell them how their cousin now works in one of their companies.
Don’t tell him how our leaders said we should become human shields
Tell him the Zionist fighters have been driven off
Tell him they’re animals
Tell him they’re the sons of pigs and monkeys
Don’t tell him about the family of dead girls who were killed by our own people
Tell him you can’t believe what you see on the Zionists’ television
Tell him they kill babies on purpose, to terrorize us
Don’t tell him anything about the fighting between Hamas and Fatah
Tell him, tell him about the army, tell him to be proud of his people.
Tell him about the family of dead girls, make up names and dead girls if you have to
Tell him the whole world will know how they massacred us
Tell him there’s dead babies, did she see babies? Show them to her.
Tell him about Mohammed Al Dura and what happened in Jenin.
Tell him the Zionists deserve to roast him hell.
Don’t tell him about how they supply us with power and clean water.
Don’t tell him how they built us schools and factories and gave us jobs.
Tell him we want our children killed to make people sorry for us,
Tell him there can we no sympathy for the sub human Zionists
Tell him they suffered in Europe and now they’re Nazis too
Tell him there was never a Holocaust, that they made it all up
Tell him we survived the Crusaders, we endured the Ottomans
Tell him we won’t stop attacking them until they’re all dead
Tell him they’re animals, that Allah created them to be destroyed
Tell him that the world hates them and will laud us for killing them
Tell him that when I see one of their children dead I laugh and shout “Allah hu akhbar!”
Tell him that we dream of rivers of their blood flowing in the land they stole from us.
Tell him that it is better to live in misery and dream of killing them than to make peace and
Live in prosperity beside them
Tell him that with blood and fire we will redeem Palestine.
Tell him we love him.
Don’t forget to remind him about how proud we will be when he’s in Heaven as a shahid
.
Seven Jewish Children is Garnel Ironheart’s
response to the anti-Semitic bulls—t written by Carly Churchill
Caryl Churchill has asserted her moral right to be identified as
the author of Seven Jewish Children even those she’s an immoral Jew-hating wench.
The play can be read or performed anywhere, by any number
of people. Ask your friends who liked Seven Jewish Children if
they think this is just as amazing a play or if, suddenly this is a racist hate-filled
diatribe.

Seven Jewish Children, One British Anti-Semite

Carly Churchill's new blood libel against the Jewish people, a short play entitled Seven Jewish Children is making the rounds in civilized society, much as accusations that we use Chrisian childrens' blood to bake our matzos once did. The play is short and admission to its performances is free at the request of the author. The only stipulation is that patrons make a donation to a so-called Palestinian charity upon attendance.
And, in the finest tradition of all post-Holocaust Jew haters, all those involved with the play deny being anti-Semitic. This includes, of course, the Jewish directors who just have to involve themselves with this filth:
"People have a right to be offended, and I respect those who have read the play and are offended," said Roth, the artistic director of Theater J at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center where the 10-minute play was performed this week. It also will be staged Saturday night and Sunday afternoon in Washington at the Forum Theater.
Roth himself was upset by the script.
However, he has added two pro-Israel plays to the evening as well as a panel discussion as part of an effort to give a broader context to the play.
One of the great canards Jew-haters recite is that it is legitimate to criticize Israel just like it is fine to criticize any country for its perceived failings. And if they were being honest abou it, there would be little to argue about. Israel, chalilah, has a great many failings. Its determination to survive despite its enemies' wishese, is not one of those failings.
Pointing this out leads to one of two further lies. "I'm not anti-Semitics. I just hate Israel." Why, pray tell, of all the countries in the world do they specifically choose Israel to heap vitriol on? If its because of its supposedly brutal occupation, well China is more brutal in Tibet. If it's because they are supposedly denying an indigenous people their right to unfettered autonomy, doesn't Britain still occupy Northern Ireland?
The other lie is: I can't be an anti-Semite. I'm Jewish. The answer to that is also simple: You can be a self-hating Jew.
But let's look at the play itself (linked above) and it will become obvious where the biases are:

Tell her this is a photograph of her grandmother, her uncles and
me
Tell her her uncles died
Don’t tell her they were killed

First, look at the wording. "Tell her..." implies that the child has asked a question and, instead of receiving an honest answer, is getting a lie, a fabrication, something to make the situation easier. "Tell her the divorce isn't her fault" for example. Is this an implication that the people in the photos aren't her real relatives, that we somehow all carry around black and white pictures to use as guilt-inducers when someone questions our right to insist on surviving? Is this a reference to the anti-Semitic statement: You Jews suffered in the Holocaust. How can you do the same thing to the Arabs?


Tell her there were people who hated Jews
Don’t tell her
Tell her it’s over now
Tell her there are still people who hate Jews
Tell her there are people who love Jews
Don’t tell her to think Jews or not Jews
Tell her more when she’s older
Tell her how many when she’s older
Tell her it was before she was born and she’s not in danger

Maybe I'm just not into art but this isn't writing. This isn't even good poetry. It's rambling, aimless, meaningless rambling. What is the point here? Is it to convey that we'll say anything to our children, give them any answer to justify what we're doing to survive?

Tell her it’s sunny there
Tell her we’re going home
Tell her it’s the land God gave us

Did you know that the reason the Arabs care about Yerushalayim so much is because they have a tradition that Mohammed, y"sh, ascended to Heaven on his magical horse from there? Not that any of their sacred texts actually say that, but somewhere along the way they took the name of the place, al Aksa (the farthest place), decided it was Yerushalayim and this is why they consider it a holy city.
How many times is Yerushalayim mentioned in the Bible? Hundreds. How many times in the Koran and the Hadit? Zero, zip, nada. Israel is the land God gave us. How can that be presented as a shallow excuse, unless we are expected to stop believing it?

Tell her they’re Bedouin, they travel about
Tell her about camels in the desert and dates
Tell her they live in tents
Tell her this wasn’t their home

Until the Jews returned to Israel, the above is an unfortunately accurate. Mark Twain, upon touring the land in the late 19th century, was amazed at the emptiness and desolation. Until the Jews returned there was nothing there. No mythical, prosperous and civilized Palestine. They wandered in one end, wandered out the other. Only the Jews tenaciously stayed. And when the time came to fight for it, only they didn't run.
Of course, Churchill has a few lines for that:

Tell her for miles and miles all round they have lands of their own
Tell her again this is our promised land.
Don’t tell her they said it was a land without people
Don’t tell her I wouldn’t have come if I’d known.

Another little known fact about early Zionism is that it succeeded as a movement despite the attitude of some of the early Zionists. Since they were secular, the idea that God had chosen that time in history to begin the ingathering of the exiles was missed by them. Instead they were attracted by the idea of an empty land, a "land without a people for a people without a land". And when they discovered that a few Arabs actually lived there, they were horrified. All that they had been organizing went against their secular European values (the same values that would build the gas chambers of Auschwitz a few decades later).
Well the truth is different - the Arabs do have countless empty miles around and around. They have 23 states of their own. And the majority of the people who came knew why they were coming and would have come anyway because they simply had no place else to go.

Don’t tell her anything about bulldozers.
Don’t tell her about the queues at the checkpoint

And by all means, don't tell her about the suicide bomber who lived in the house getting bulldozed. Don't tell her about the terrorists that created the need for the checkpoints in the first place. The typical Jew-hater's response to Jewish survival - they start the fight, we survive and suddenly we're guilty for the whole fight in the first place.

Tell her we’re stronger
Tell her we’re entitled
Tell her they don’t understand anything except violence
Tell her we want peace

Ms Churchill, by the grace of God, for the first time in 1900 we are stronger, we are entitled, they don't understand anything except violence (ask them yourself if you don't believe me) and we don't want peace but they have rejected every legitimate offer. You might make these sound like worthless excuses but they are the inconvenient truth.
Is there any point in going on? This play should be ignored and any Jews who either help promote it or are involved with it should be shunned with the same hatred we now reserve for the Neturei Karta. For in the end, they are no different.

Celebrating Yom Ha'atzmaut

Rafi of the famous Life In Israel blog had a piece in The Jerusalem Post which raised a question that I've also asked myself - as an observant Jew, how does one best celebrate Israel's Independence Day? I reject those who say we can't innovate new holidays. There's ample precendent for communities to declare days of remembrance for good and for bad. If enough competent halachic authorities say that we can declare the 5th of Iyyar as a national holiday for all Jews, if they can also show that it is consistent with halachah that we recite the Hallel with a beracha (which is my custom) then it is established amongst the people of Israel.
But that's where my comfort ends. By my understanding, there are Jewish ways to celebrate and Jewish ways to mourn. Long-time readers of my blog (both of you) know that I'm not comfortable with the current format used by most secular communities on Yom HaShoah but that doesn't mean I am against the remembering of the six million kedoshim, chalilah. It's just that from time immemorial Jews have recalled their sorrows and mourned their losses through fasting, public acts of sadness and prayer to God that He should redeem us from our exile.
Similarly when jews celebrate it they do it with God and His Holy Torah at the centre. Look at all our major holidays that involve partying. On Simchas Torah, we dance with the Torahs in our arms and conclude the festivities not with one drunken belch but when the reading of the final and first sections of the Torah. On Purim, well okay we finish with a drunken belch but we start with the reading of the Megillah to remind ourselves that we are only alive to celebrate today because God quietly intervened in history and overthrew the wicked Haman's plans.
So it should be, in my opinion, for Yom Ha'atzmaut. A military parade in Tel Aviv (I don't think they do that anymore, do they?) and street parties across the country are fine but how does that satisfy the traditional Jew's desire to celebrate God's kindness to us and His miracles that have wrought us this deliverance? Partying for the sake of partying, seeing the establishment of the State exclusively as a result of the bravery of the men and women who fought for it without recognizing that their efforts were supported by the Ribono Shel Olam, doesn't sit well with me. As Rafi himself notes:
By nature I am a very patriotic person. I love Eretz Yisrael and I love Medinat Yisrael. I sometimes do not like things a particular government does, going against values I think should be promoted, but as a state, I love this country.
Sometimes we forget 61 years later, but the state was founded with the goal of creating a homeland for the Jewish people. Nobody wanted us back then. Now we look back and say we could have lived anywhere. But when we say that, we are saying it with the perspective and history of 61 years which would have been completely different were it not for the State of Israel.
The state gave us the ability to live as Jews in our own country, and it also gave us the ability to live as Jews in other countries. Ask any Holocaust survivor, ask anybody who was around at the formation of the state, and they will describe to you how everything was different in Western countries after the state was founded.
These things should all be recalled, lest we begin to take them for granted. But how? His solution was something I think that could be worked on. (I'm ignoring the other thread in his article, the idea that being Chareidi means you can't celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut):
So why don't we in the general haredi world? Why are we afraid that if we wave the flag we will be ostracized? Why will we be ostracized if we wave the flag?
I don't know.
The rabbis and shuls all plan learning programs on Yom Ha'atzmaut for those men who are normally at work but have the day off. It is great to be able to spend part of the day learning. These special study sessions are often on interesting topics. But do they ever plan one on the topic of Yom Ha'atzmaut? Do they ever explain to us that it is okay to celebrate somehow - or if it is not okay, then why not? All I know is that it is not accepted, but I have no idea why.
The mere existence of the state has given us so much that I have no understanding of why it is wrong to celebrate it. It seems that if the special study session was on the topic of Yom Ha'atzmaut (either explaining why it is right or wrong to celebrate), aside from the fact that the yeshiva hosting such a session would likely be packed because so many people want to hear a Torah discussion on the subject, many people would know how to approach the day properly - with direction from their rabbi via the session.
It is up to the Dati Leumi community to show the way in this regard. It has been one of my goals, mostly unstarted, to create a series of shiurim for Yom Ha'atzmaut so that Jews can get together and, on the day that God remembered us after 1900 of sufferinig, come together and learn from His Torah that this is indeed part of His plan for history, that we indeed watching the first flowering of the final redemption, may the rest of it flower real soon.
Maybe I'll get to it next year but it seems like that's the way we can show the entire Torah world that this day carries real significance for all Jews.

The Chtuzpah To Ask

Most people who are not well acquainted with history don't know the complete details of the 1947 United Nations partition place. Most people know that the land was to be divided into six parts, three to be given to the Arabs and three to the Jews. What many don't know is that Yerushalayim was not to be included in any of those six parts but rather was to be maintained under the control of the United Nations as the world's only "international city".
Fortunately God frustrated those plans and today the city is in the hands of its rightful owners. Unfortunately no matter how many years have passed since the miracle of 1967, there are powers in the world that simply cannot accept Jewish sovereignty over our holy city.
Of course there is the Arab world. But even more worrisome now is the new attitude of the Vatican which, in advance of Pope Ratzinger's upcoming visit to Israel, is making an incomprehensible demand:
The Chief Rabbinate issued a special clarification Wednesday stating that according to halachic rule, no Holy Land assets can be handed over to the Vatican.
The ruling followed Pope Benedict XVI's request to be given the title to several of the Christian faith's holy sites, ahead of his upcoming visit to Israel.
On Tuesday the Rabbinate's Holy Sites Commission convened an emergency session on the matter, after which it issued a statement demanding that the government "cease all discussions on the matter".
In heated Knesset meeting, Michael Ben-Ari refers to Benedict XVI as 'graduate of Hitler youth,' says pope 'continues to blame Jewish people for killing of Jesus'
Sources within the committee told Ynet that the Foreign Ministry tried to pressure Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger into calling off the meeting.
The statement further read that the Holy Sites Commission convened the meeting after being approached by "rabbis from Jewish communities around the world who expressed their shock and amazement over reports of negotiations on the possible transfer of holy sites in Jerusalem and throughout all of Israel to the Vatican's control."
Rabbi Simcha Hakohen Kook, a member of the commission, told Ynet that he has obtained a list of dozens of sites the pope is asking that Israel hand over to the Vatican's control -19 in the West Bank and 28 in Jerusalem – including the Last Supper room on Mount Zion.
This is amazing. On what are they suddenly basing this claim for Israel to withdraw its control over its own sovereign territory? Because they held those places briefly during the Crusades? Because they can be trusted to be better guardians of those sites?
I realize there is an issue of diplomatic senstivity but then I read that the government has actually enterred into negotiations?
Throughout the 1900 years of history since the fall of the Second Jewish Commonwealth, Yerushalayim has been ruled by many authorities. Only one, count 'em - one, has guaranteed freedom of access and worship to all religions - Israel. When the Crusaders, y"sh, held the city they massacred or drove out all its Jews. The Muslim record of crimes against Jews is longer than any scroll can hold. Only when Jews have held the city have all peoples and faiths been free to walk its streets. And now the Israeli government is considering giving that up?
For shame!

A Word on Influenza

Although it's a departure from the main theme of the blog, I would like to inform folks of what to worry about and what NOT to worry about regarding the current outbreak of H1N1 influence virus.

1) You can call it swine flu. However, it is traditional to name influenza outbreaks after the country of origin, hence the Spanish flu of 1918. As a result, the WHO is currently working to rename the outbreak as Mexican flu. This is not due to any chareidi attempts to control the WHO. They already control the banks.
2) Mexican/swine flu is simply a genetic variant of the common influenza virus. Because of this genetic variance, human immune systems have no initial defence against it, nor will the influenza vaccines injected last autumn/winter offer any protection. However, unlike the 1918 and 1968 outbreaks, this virus lacks the super-virulence genes that cause millions of deaths. It is unlikely (at this point) that we will see any further deaths except in people who are already quite ill and can't handle the strain of the infection.
3) The best way to prevent transmission of the virus is to practice meticulous handwashing, avoiding coughing in someone's face, and don't share drinks and food. In other words, the same as preventing the transmission of the common cold.
4) If someone has been to Mexico, they are not automatically plague infested. If they have been back a week and don't have any symptoms, they do not have the virus. Simple as that. Therefore, if your friend or neighbour just got back from Guadalajara and shook your hand on Shabbos, don't panic and run to your doctor for Tamiflu. It wastes your time and annoys the doctor.
5) Don't call your doctor and ask him for a prescription for Tamiflu "just in case". You won't get the 'script and the doctor will think you're a paranoid nut. If you have symptoms of the flu, then go see the doctor and he will decide if you need the medication.
6) Finally, in the unexpected event of the virus undergoing a genetic shift and becoming dangerously virulent, then I will delete this post, deny its existence, and run for the hills.

Converting Conversions

The never-ending fight amongst different authorities on conversions continues, as per this article from The Jewish Week. Unfortunately, it also highlights the reason why Israeli authorities continue to make conversion standards stricter and the inability of the non-Orthodox so-called "streams" to see their role as part of the problem.
Here's the bottom line for many Chareidim rabbonim in Israel. A person presents and says "I'm a Jewish convert." When asked about the process, imagine the array of bewildering answers. "Well I spoke to the Reform rabbi in my town and she said if I believed in God, well that's super." Or "Yeah, but I did it Conservative so they told me it was okay if I didn't actually keep kosher afterwards as long as I tried to be a good person."
But those are the easy ones. The hard ones are the ones who went to an ostensibly Orthodox rabbi but who failed to clue in that if you're going to go through the whole rigamarole, all the studying and effort, you're supposed to continue in the lifestyle after you're in.
Indeed, if I were a Chareidi rabbi I'd conclude, as many of them doubtlessly have, that unless the convert sitting in front of me looks and sounds exactly like me, he's probably not a truly successful candidate. It's not fair, it's probably not halachic and it causes a great deal of pain to many, many sincere Jews, but it has one major advantage: it requires no thinking. Never underestimate the power of that.
But when the non-observant protest this trend, they only undermine their own case. Consider:
Rabbi Robert Levine of the Reform Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan warned the full house of 250 people at the JCC: “We’re coming very close to the level of sinat chinam”
[hatred among Jews] that brought about the destruction of the Temple. “Many Orthodox rabbis won’t walk into my shul, and that pains me,” he said, noting that the level of trust among rabbis of different denominations has deteriorated in recent years.
Really, this is one of the most tired and weak arguments, but the Reformers never cease to pull it out. Having unilaterally rejected all traditional Torah values, having built institutions that violate halacha in their operation, they are then shocked, shocked!, that Orthodox rabbonim won't walk in. What have they missed? Judaism has, amongst other things, standards. If they refuse, in the name of secular liberalism, to hold by them, then who has declared who is unwelcome in their synagogues? Not the Orthodox.
Staking a claim that Conservative Judaism meets traditional standards on conversion, Rabbi Judith Hauptman, professor of Talmud and rabbinic culture at the Jewish Theological Seminary, cited Talmudic passages regarding how one should treat a potential convert. She said each requirement is met by Conservative religious courts.
A female rabbi insisiting the JTS meets traditional standards. Yeah, uh huh. See what I mean about a lack of self-awareness?
After hearing Rabbi Levine speak of how Reform conversions are carried out with an emphasis on Torah learning and a commitment to ethical behavior, within a framework of choice, Rabbi Herring said he was “astounded” to hear that the Reform movement “requires acceptance of the commandments.”
He said he had been led to believe that Reform requirements did not include a commitment to keep the mitzvot.
“We have to be truthful and frank,” he said.
The gray area of the discussion was on the definition of what it means to “accept the yoke of the commandments,” as cited in the Talmud; some Orthodox rabbis insist on a convert’s commitment to keep all of the mitzvot, and the more liberal branches require an assurance to lead an ethical life based on Torah values, but not necessarily each commandment.
Rabbi Levine noted that his Reform movement was responsible for most American conversions, and he offered an impassioned explanation of why basing a child’s Jewishness on patrilineal descent, the Reform standard, is consistent with Jewish history. He said that if Rabbi Herring’s standards were required, “we would be a vestigial people,” adding that when “you tell the vast majority [of potential converts] ‘you’re not up to our standards,’ the next generation won’t give a damn.”
This is an example of how Reforms twist time-honoured Torah principles beyond recognition and then insist: see? see? We're the ones who are really traditional by doing this! What Rav Herring (I think the RCA needs a leader named after a more aggressive fish) does not understand is how Reform defines Torah and mitzvos. Bluntly speaking, it means "Anything I do that I think makes me a good person is a mitzvah. Anything I learn which I think has religious meaning is Torah."
Rabbi Hauptman posed the notion of all girls going to the mikveh before bat mitzvah and all couples doing the same before marriage so as to level the standards of Jewish practice in a non-judgmental way.
Perhaps Ms. Hauptman should encourage her girls to not engage in pre-marital sex before sending them to a pre-bat mitzvah mikveh dip? Perhaps she could convince the 95% of her adherents who don't keep kosher to try avoiding the bacon dip at their next company lunch? Perhaps she could speak to those in her religion who drive on Shabbos and think they're doing a mitzvah and disabuse them of this notion?
In the end, the non-religious movements are hypocrites. On one hand they scream of Jewish unity. On the other hand, they create thousands of definitions of what kashrus, Shabbos and other Jewish insitutions mean. They are, in fact, the source of the disunity. If a Jew wishes to abandon Torah and mitzvos, he has that option. But to abandon them but continue to insist he's a good practising Jew? Sorry, that's just dishonest.

An Unfair Comparison

Every year this happens. Someone looks around during the Yom HaZikron siren and sees that, unlike everyone else, the Chareidim on the street don't stop and stand with respect. Yom HaAtzmaut arrives and they go about their business, refusing to join in the joy of the day. And people wonder why?
This article from Ynet tries to explain the difference but to my mind, it doesn't make the case:
The folklore that accompanies Israel's national Memorial and Independence Days, includes the perpetual question: What's the ultra-Orthodox's opinion? Will they stand for the moment of silence? Do they respect the memory of the fallen? Do they celebrate Independence Day? Do they rejoice in it?
The ritual question, which finds its expression through the images of those haredim who walk during the memorial siren, or through the heated statements of young haredim in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, sparks a seemingly unexpected outrage among the state's secular residents: "Why don't they care?" "Why don't they stand up during the siren?" "Why are they indifferent towards Independence Day?" And so on.
And the truth is, dear seculars, that you're totally right. The haredim don't care. Memorial Day and Independence Day are not part of their historical chronology. The ultra-Orthodox don't stand up in silence during the siren, not because this is a "gentile custom"; they don't stand up in silence because this day symbolizes nothing to them, because on this day young haredim also don't recite Mishnayot or hold other religious ceremonies in memory of the fallen.
The haredi street does not celebrate Independence Day not because haredim think – like the eccentric minority that calls itself Neturei Karta – that this is a sad day, but because Independence Day, which for many is a national day and a highly important historical date, is for them a day like any other.
Many of the sector's members barbecue on Independence Day not because they wish to take part in the joyful holiday spirit, but mainly because it's an opportunity to light fire on a day off that's not a Shabbat.
Do the haredim do so out of alienation, disgust, or even wickedness? It appears not. The haredim do not celebrate or mark these holidays because they feel no connection to them. Most of them have never served in the army, and their parents did not take part in Israel's wars. Very few are the fallen, the injured or the combatants among the haredi family or neighborhood. So who have they got to remember and commemorate?
The ultra-Orthodox have never been involved in the crucial decisions of Israel's history, whether because they didn't want to be or because nobody asked them. Israeli democratic processes, which for the secular teenager seem trivial – such as party institutions, courts, primary elections, or even a student union, are alien to the haredi adolescent. What have they got to celebrate?
The two poles, which are so far apart during the rest of the year, aspire for unnatural synthesis on holidays and festivals. The haredim ask the seculars to be sad on Tisha B'Av, abstain from bread on Pesach, and study Torah on Shavuot. The seculars, who are, justifiably, unable to produce sorrow on the merry days of July-August and wail the destruction of an ancient house of ritual that means nothing to them, practically demand of the haredim to produce joy or sorrow on days that the haredim have no relation to.
So, dear seculars, get off our backs on memorial and Independence Day. We truly have nothing against them. We have no reaction to your grief, and we do not despise your joy, but however – they mean nothing to us.
There are a few serious flaws with this thesis. Let me point them out.
First, it's one thing for a person living in Canada to say "Hey, it's the 4th of July. Who cares?" In fact, life in Canada goes on as normal on July 4 each year because we don't live in the United States and therefore the day they declared independence really doesn't matter to us like it does to them.
However, for Chareidim living in Israel, this is absolutely false. The day Israel declared independence, everything changed for every Jew in the world, and especially the community in Israel. As a result of this declaration of independence, Chareidim can build yeshivos on the state's dime, sit and study without worrying about working for a living, once again on the state's dime. They can do so in safety because of the sacrifices of the brave and holy soldiers of Tzahal who do their utmost to keep all citizens of the State safe and secure. The Chareidim in Israel are direct, daily beneficiaries of the State and its defenders. To therefore say that holidays which recalls those who sacrified themselves for the State and the State which is the source of so much largesse to them is irrelevant stinks of lack of gratitude, a sin in itself.
Indeed, one might further note that it is precisely because so few Chareidim have fallen in combat as soldiers in the army that this community, more than any other, should be showing extreme gratitude to the brave kedoshim whose blood was split for them.
The second argument that falls flat is one of reciprocity. Now, I personally don't celebrate Yom HaShoah. I do my best to recall the lost souls of our people who were slaughtered during my recitation of kinnos on Tisha B'Av. That does not mean, however, that I do not care that my secular brethren find great meaning in Yom HaShoah. Indeed, in a secular culture that doesn't know about Tisha B'Av, there is no other way to commemorate the Holocaust other than on Yom HaShoah. To therefore say it is irrelevant to me, than I am exempt from respecting others' feelings regarding the day and acting as if this outpouring of pain and emotion from my brethren does not exist, is incredibly selfish. So the chilonim don't avoid bread on Pesach, but I don't walk into their homes and shove matzah in their face.
In the end, it strikes me that the attitude of this article is one of abrasive selfishness. Chareidim generally tend to ignore any recent Jewish life events or holidays they didn't create, but they do expect others to show extreme respect for theirs. They can set the standards for others, others cannot tell them what to do.
I recall being told my a Chabadnik a few years ago that one does not say tachanun on Kislev 19 because it's a day of celebration for all the Jewish people because of something that happened to one of their Rebbes (he might have had a particularly satisfying bowel movement, maybe?). When I pointed out that if I skipped tachanun, I fully expected him to say hallel with a brachah come Iyyar 5, he looked blankly at me. Accept my ways, he seemed to be saying, but don't expect me to do the same for you.
Yom HaZikaron is a day for all Jewish people to remember the sacrifices others have made so that we can have what to celebrate. Yom HaAtzmaut is the day to celebrate God's finally having remembered us to give us a place under the sun. Let those who don't see any relevance in these days remember that there is a grevious price to be paid for separating from the tzibur.

An End to Global Warming

King Abdullah II, who is far more dependent on Israel than his own army to ensure the security of his borders, nevertheless sees fit to interfere in the Jewish state's politics once in a while.
Well, you can't really blame him. After all, 75% of his population isn't Jordanian, or to more correct, Hashemite. They are so-called Palestinians and even though one of their own is now his queeen, they are still a suspect population in the eyes of minority. One cannot be too offended if, once in a while, he follows in his father's footsteps and makes token calls for the creation of a terrorist state in Yehuda and Shomron (there's already one in 'Aza).
But his more recent statement on the issue beggars belief:
Solving the core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian "problem" and that of Jerusalem will solve all the problems in the region, Jordan's King Abdullah said.
Abdullah, on Sunday's "Meet The Press," also said the United States must take a strong role in peace talks.
"The only way that we're going to be able to solve this problem -- if it's left to the players, the Israelis and Palestinians by themselves, we're not going to get anywhere," the king said. "It can only happen if there is an American umbrella with a determined American president that is going to get the Israelis and Palestinians to sit on the table because both sides historically have always come up with an excuse why not to go the last mile. And I believe that Obama understands how much this resonates."
Abdullah also said that solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem would be the best way for the United States to persuade Iran to back off its nuclear program.
He added that Israel's neighbors in the region are concerned that Israel could attack Iran, though they do not fear an attack by the United States.
"The rogue question would be what Israel would do," Abdullah said. "And therefore, I think it is an imperative over the next month or two to start negotiations because I think any military strike against Iran would be extremely counterproductive and I, I don't see the outcome of that.
"OK, you hit Iran. What happens then? And it's the not knowing, I think, creates a lot of fears with all of us around the world."
Hmmm. All the problems in the region, eh? Does he not realize that other than Iran there are lots of other problems in the region? For example, how will emasculating Israel solve the following:
1) 99% of Egypt's wealth is controlled by 1% of the population while the remainder lives in dire poverty. Fanatic Islamofascist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are growing in power because of this. Only the secular military is preventing total social upheaval. How will giving Abbas a toy kingdom change this?
2) Hezbollah was created to get Israel out of Lebanon. Okay, they're out but Hezbollah is still there and now trying to take over the country to bring it under Iran's control. How will a peace agreement change this?
3) Forget the rest of the politics. What about environmental degradation, air pollution and the scarcity of fresh water?
Given the Arabs a 23rd state to use as a launchpad for attacks against Israel won't solve any real problems. Abdullah will be even more shocked when it exacerbates his own.

Guest Post from Baruch Pelta

Not that long ago, Garnel offered me to write the occasional guest post for his blog. I have been extraordinarily busy, so time has gracefully not allowed me to brainstorm about the issues as much as I used to.

So I know what you're all obviously wondering; what does Pelta do when he's been working really hard and just needs to sit and relax for awhile? Sometimes good music just doesn't cut it.

What I've found is tremendously effective is watching skeptics and debunkers destroy (and make fun of) pseudoscientific claims, dubious conspiracy theories, and simple nuttery in online videos. I'm sure that sounds like an odd way to relax, especially for a religious fellow. So why have I developed this hobby? Well, they're usually just as entertaining as movies and they are free. And they remind those of us who care for emes not to take every iffy magic(k)al story we hear so seriously. Yes, I am aware that most (all?) of these outspoken skeptics I watch are atheists. Oh well.

Here's a list of videos that I made for the weekly viewing my friends and I have going. All of them save one are from ex-magician and skeptic extraordinaire James Randi, and that is simply due to my preference for his material (his organization is still offering over $1,000,000 to those who demonstrate paranormal abilities in scientific conditions; see their website for details). If you have a paranormal claim or conspiracy theory you wish to examine, remember that Google, Google Videos, and Youtube are your friends.

This post goes out to Rabbi Josh Waxman and Brooklyn Wolf; your posts for our community specifically is appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuaJWLeSmEc -- James Randi debunks Israeli psychic Uri Geller.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BQKu0YP8Y -- Randi debunks faith healer Peter Popoff in the 70's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxqRN5vjDHQ -- Randi on Popoff in 2007 (scary, isn't it?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxvPJFv6X94 -- Are mediums legit?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvVftFZHXSI&feature=related -- Can your personality be deduced by an expert who touches your personal possessions? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi0FpXRT2k&feature=related -- Do modern astrological insights have bearing on the stock market?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sQHYkyq7Hs&NR=1 -- Can details about crimes be deduced from psychic information embedded in objects used?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeYkOHQ683k&feature=related -- Can your personality be deduced from the way you write? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ojdYsHgmQ -- Are mediums legit? (2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOsCnX-TKIY&feature=related -- Does dowsing for metal work? http://skepdic.com/facilcom.html -- Is facilitated communication legit? The video's at the bottom.

The Linear God

The Book of Iyov has always been somewhat troubling to me. For those of you who haven't gone through it, here's a capsule summary:
Iyov is this great guy living in the land of Utz. He's got everything: a wife, kids, property, cattle and the good sense not to have invested with Bernie Madoff. He's righteous too, constantly giving to the poor, celebrating his good fortune with his family and going overboard in acts of repentance just in case he or someone in his family has done wrong.
Up in Heaven, the Satan (in a great speaking role) comes before God who says, in effect, "Iyov is this great guy, you know?" The Satan responds by noting that, in his opinion, the only reason Iyov is so righteous is because God is so good to him. Take it all away, he offers, and Iyov won't be so swell.
So God says "Fine, take everything away and let's see what happens."
The next thing you know, Iyov's lost it all. His family is wiped out except for his wife, his cattle is stolen and his mutual funds tank (something about ABCP's I think). He's left with nothing except some boils on his body and a wife eager to nag at him about how lousy things suddenly are. But he refuses to curse God, instead uttering the famous line: The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken, blessed be the name of the Lord.
Thus endeth the first part.
In the second part, three friends who are eventually joined by a fourth, come to comfort Iyov. Unfortunately, things don't go so well here either. Iyov, frustrated by being unable to comprehend why everything has gone south for him, cries out against God's handling of the universe. The friends, don't fare much better, each of them trying an approach based on the premise: God punishes the sinner, you got punished, therefore you're a sinner so admit it already and stop saying God is unjust. And the response from Iyov continues to be: I didn't sin! This isn't how justice works, therefore God must not be just.
Thus endeth the second part.
At the end of the book, in response to Iyov's challenge to answer for His perceived lack of justice, God Himself appears but His appearance is most troublesome. His justification for the misfortune that He has allowed to befall Job is, essentially: Hey, I'm God and you just don't understand things the way I do. To make matters even more confusing, God finishes off by giving Iyov back everything he lost and promising not to smite the loins of the friends who had spent the whole book justifying God's conduct in the first place, if Iyov requested that He not do so.
And here endeth the book.
Naturally, like all other books in the Bible, one cannot simply read this story at a surface level and expect to understand it. One is obliged to look deeper into the text to see what the meaning of the text is.
The first thing to understand, as Rav Soloveitchik notes, is that Iyov really isn't the great guy a superficial reading of the text implies. In fact, his major imperfection seems directly tied into how he responds to the Satan destroying his life.
Iyov, for starters, may be a nice guy but reading the text clearly shows that he is doing it on condition. He believes in God and he knows that he's doing wall thanks to His beneficence, and he's eager to do what he needs to do to keep that beneficence coming. Worship Him? Fine. Give to charity? Sure. Fast in case of unknown sins? Great. He thinks in a linear pattern. Justice means God does good to one who does good in His eyes. I do good, I get good. I want good, therefoere I will do good. And as long as I do good, I get God's goodness. Done.
The Satan's challenge isn't a giant cosmic bet. God does have better things to do (I sure hope) than sit up in Heaven rolling the dice. Hey, let's give this guy weevils in the groin and see if he complains. Let's give this other guy ten million dollars and see what he does with it. We might think like that but it is a grave mistake to attribute such simplicity to God.
No, the Satan's challenge is very simple. Unlike in non-Jewish mythology, he's not into lies. Rather, he simply states the truth the way he sees it. In response to God's statement "See how great Iyov is?" he notes the linearity of the relationship. "He's only good because You've been good to him. Take that good away and let's see if, in the absence of a linear relationship, he still think's You're so hot."
And as the story goes on to tell us, Iyov is confounded by the loss of cause and effect. Until now, the universe was easy to understand. Believing in God and worshiping Him was easy to do. Suddenly the world is a complex place where doing good does not lead to getting good and he doesn't know how to handle it. For Iyov, the loss of simplicity is not replaced with the thought: Perhaps there's something going on I don't understand. Rather he continues to insist that he does understand everything and therefore if something doesn't make sense, it's because nothing makes sense. There is no justice, just randomness. He was doing well before, He isn't now, but there's no higher purpose, just the tossing of the dice and he got snake eyes.
For the friends, there is a similar lack of ability to understand the situation. The seeming randomness that has stuck Iyov hasn't hit them... yet. Therefore they continue to indulge in the original paradigm: You do good, you get good. Therefore since Iyov is getting badness, he must have done bad.
But then what to make of God's entrance at the end of the story? Again, a closer reading of the text reveals a depth not easily noted. Yes, God clearly points out that the universe is so complicated that only He is qualified to run it and say what's right and wrong. Things happen in our world that we, as short lived beings trapped in time, cannot completely appreciate. Something bad happens to us, we cry out but it is hard to have faith that perhaps this is all for the best. A child gets cancer, chalilah. A person is struck and crippled after being struck by a drink driver who walks away unharmed (it seems the bastards always walk away unharmed), a person works hard to build a business only to have it stolen away by someone unscrupulous. To our eyes this is injustice. These people committed no sin, yet they are seemingly punished. Where is justice?
The Book of Judges tells us about a wicked man named Micah. Micah steals money from his mother and when he admits it she takes the money and helps him set up an idolatrous shrine. Things end badly for him when a group of people from Dan, looking for a place to live and a priest to lead them in worship, take off with his house Levy and his idol.
But the Midrash gives us an interesting background on Micah. According to our Sages, Moshe had an Iyov-like moment in Egypt at the start of his career. The Egyptians apparently had developed a method of Jewish population control that involved take our children and putting them into walls as bricks. Moshe complained to God about the seeming injustice of this. Adults who might have sinned, he could understand, but children who were blameless? How could God allow this to happen? God's response was: Fine, rescue one of those kids and see what happens. Chazal tell us that he did so and the baby turned out to be Micah.
If one accepts this Midrash as a literal historical happening, one must accept that the events of the Midrash and those recounted in the Book of Judges occured decades apart and that Micah revealed the depth of his corruption (he had seen God at Har Sinai and then raised a shrine to an idol) only after Moshe Rabeinu, a"h, died.
Imagine meeting Moshe Rabeinu on the day before his death. What would have his impression of Micah been? Nice kid, nothing really stands out about him. Zeh hu. In his eyes, he might have even thought: See? What was God talking about? Nothing bad happened because I saved him from becoming a brick. Yet long after his death the child's true nature came forth and corrupts hundreds of Jewish souls.
We forget, as creatures trapped in time, that God exists outside of time, seeing as he exists outside of everything He created and time is one of those things. We see things in a linear fashion. Today is the tomorrow I worried about yesterday (Sher O Shayari). We also have a strong psychological tenderness to anthropomorphize our conception of the universe because we have difficulty with the idea that everything in the universe does think like we do. We do it with animals, we do it with history, and worst of all, we do it with God. We think about how events happen, apply our limited ability to judge to the event, and then assume God must think like us. And if something unjust happens, we blame God. We think this is wrong. In our estimation it's bad, therefore it must be and therefore God has, chalilah, done wrong.
Only God doesn't think like us. It is axiomatic that we cannot comprehend His thoughts or how He runs the universe and it out arrogant human nature to believe we can understand both. This is what the book of Iyov comes to show us. Iyov, for all his great love of God, was a slave to a simplistic philosophy. I've figured out how the universe works, he said when things were going well. No you haven't, says God at the end of the book. You see cause and effect from a limited mortal perspective. You cannot possibly see the entire picture. That is why I allowed you, Iyov, to be seemingly be punished for nothing, to show you through bitter example that service and love of God is unconditional. What might seem bad to you is, in the greater scheme of things that only God can understand, really good and the point of faith is to be able to take a step back and see that.
Now, I'm not saying this is easy. If it was, countless trees that were sacrified to create paper to fill countless philosophy books that have cured insomnia for countless university students would still be standing and combatting global warming. Faith in the face of apparent injustice or random destruction is the hardest faith to maintain but that is the challenge of the Jew.
Indeed, I am convinced that most people who claim to reject God and Torah fall into this trap. They create a godhead that is simple and linear: Do good and this god does good for you because he said that he believes in justice and rewarding the righteous. Then when injustice happens, they clap their hands together and say: See? There's injustice. If there was really a god out there enforcing justice (as we understand it) then injustice wouldn't happen. Therefore there's no god.
How limited. How frustrating. A non-existent diety that doesn't come close to matching what we know of the Living God from our holy source, coupled with the unrealistic expectation that this omnipotent diety do what is right in our eyes because we can't possibly conceive of what is right being any other way.
And lest you think: Oh great, 50 paragraphs just to find him taking another swipe at the non-religious, let me inform you of a messy truth: too many Torah observant Jews think this way. I wouldn't have been able to say this two generations ago but nowadays it's quite easy to see this fault in the Jewish community. Really, of all those boys sitting in Lakewood or New York and learning, what proportion are there because a fire of determination to learn burns in their neshamah, and who would stay at learn come what may, and how many are there because there's money in it for them and who would leave if things got too tough? How many of us engage in the latest chumros not out of a hearfelt desire to please God and improve our neshamos but because we're afraid that if we don't keep up with the Jonesteins, that somewhat a vengeful diety will vent his rath upon our loins (and probably the other parts as well)? For how many of us is faith tied into a sense of doing well? This is the mistake of Iyov.
Indeed, is our history not essentially one great book of Iyov? Promised to be the Chosen People, picked for the greatest of futures, we have suffered more than any other people in history (if only because the nations who suffered more have disappeared and we're still around to receive more troubles). How is this consistent with what the Torah promised us? But we have faith that the big picture will be revealed when Moshiach Tzidkeinu appears (he's got a lot of 'splainin' to do Lucy) and it is that faith tha thas allowed us to endure as a people no matter what has happened to us.
This, then, is the point of the book of Iyov: to remind us that God is not a linear diety, trapped in time and cause-and-effect like us. He exists beyond and outside of such petty limitations. Perhaps this is what Chazal meant when they noted that it is a constant mitzvah to be aware of His presence. Being aware is easy. Being aware and remembering that we cannot understand His nature despite His closeness to us is another.