What's wrong with supporting the Third Temple?
In the summer of 1990, before we made aliya, Mrs. Carl and I and the then-three children spent half a day with an organization that was creating the priestly garments and the vessels for the Temple - may it be restored speedily and in our time. The highlight of the day (for us) was when they showed us a model of the wash-basin and asked who knew how the Kohain (priest) stood when washing from the wash basin. Son # 1, child # 2 - then just short of 5-years old - immediately reached down and grabbed his ankles with his hands. We snapped a picture, and it instantly became the talk of the pre-1A class at YKP, where he went to school at the time.
The place we visited that day is known as the Temple Institute. On Sunday morning, the Leftists at Army radio (yes, even IDF radio is dominated by the Left) reported with horror that the Temple Institute is receiving government funding. No, it's not a huge amount, but it's enough to set the chattering classes into a tizzy. Fortunately, the government agencies in question aren't saying 'we didn't know.' Instead, they are
defending the funding. For now.
The Education Ministry responded to the Army Radio report, saying:
“The nonprofit meets criteria for receiving subsidies that go toward
instructing students who visit the institute, and this has been the case
for over 10 years now.”
“The Temple Institute deals with
research, and it is supported by the ministry in accordance with
professional criteria that has nothing to do with directly supporting
the individual who heads it,” a Culture and Sport Ministry spokesperson
said in response.
“Thus far we have found nothing that would
raise suspicions of incitement or anything unusual as it relates to the
temple. In light of the Army Radio report, it is the ministry’s
intention to bring this matter to the attention of our legal
department.”
The Temple Institute responded:
“For over 25 years the Temple Institute has stood at
the forefront of research, education and preparation towards the time of
the rebuilding of the Holy Temple,” a spokesperson for the Temple
Institute told The Jerusalem Post. “The Institute's efforts have been
recognized and awarded by Israel's Ministry of Education. Its
trailblazing educational materials and scholarly publications have
revolutionized these difficult areas of Torah knowledge for young and
old alike.”
“Over one million people from all over the world, of
every background and religion, have visited the Institute's exhibition
located in Jerusalem's Old City," the spokesperson said. "The Temple
Institute's website is the most popular and educational web site on the
subject of the Holy Temple in the world."
"The rebuilding of the
Holy Temple, called by the prophet Isaiah a 'house of prayer for all
nations,' is a positive commandment, and the vision of the Temple's
rebuilding, which will usher in an unparalleled era of world peace and
harmony, is the central theme of the entire Torah. The Temple Institute
is proud to represent the concept which has been heartfelt prayer of the
Jewish people for two millennia.”
Any Jew who goes to synagogue prays for the restoration of the Temple. Orthodox Jews pray for it at least three times a day. As far as I know, prayers for the restoration of the Temple continue to appear in prayer books of the Conservative movement as well. While the Reform movement originally removed all references to the Temple, that was part and parcel of their removing the land of Israel (pre-state) from their prayers. But the land of Israel was restored to the Reform prayer book many years ago and I believe that the Temple was restored then too (caveat - I have not seen conservative or reform prayer books in recent years).
Let's be honest with ourselves. When the Temple is rebuilt, it is going to be rebuilt on the very same mountaintop where the dome of the rock and the al-aqsa mosque sit today. By definition, the rebuilding of the Temple, which is something we pray for every day, means no more false religions on the Temple Mount. And while no one is suggesting that we send the IDF to clear the Temple Mount tomorrow morning (maybe we should), we should not fool ourselves that we are praying for something else when we say in our prayers, "And may our eyes see when You return to Zion with mercy."
If the Israeli government cannot support an organization that is educating people about Jewish belief in our future, I have to wonder by what right the Israeli government calls itself a Jewish government.
Labels: Conservative rabbis, Israel is a Jewish state, Israel's Jewish character, Orthodox Jews, Temple Mount, Third Temple, Union for Reform Judaism
Diaspora Jews to be able to call Knesset debates
An initiative by MK Einat Wilf of the Atzmaut party (Ehud Barak's faction that will likely not pass the threshold in the next elections) would
allow diaspora Jewry to initiate debates in the Knesset.
Today, the Knesset Sub-Committee on Ties between Israel and the Jewish
People took the first step to creating a Knesset that will also represent the Jewish People in the diaspora. The Sub-Committee discussed the proposal by Joelle Fiss, a British Jew currently resident in the United States, to create a “Jewish People’s Initiative” on the pattern of the European Union Citizens’ Initiative. Fiss recently published her ideas in her book: “Tiptoeing on Minefields”. The Committee Chair, MK Einat Wilf (Atzma’ut), was quick to partially adopt some of her proposals and announced that a request by a few thousand Jews, from at least three different Jewish
communities, registered by email or by “Likes” on Facebook, will lead her to initiate a debate by the Committee she chairs on the requested issue.
Wilf stressed that “consultation between the official institutions of the State of Israel and the Jewish People are essential, and it is important to listen and to understand the issues they face. [This consultation must be] not only with heads of a few Jewish organizations who meet periodically with ministers and Prime Ministers, but also with all the many Jews around the world.”
Joelle Fiss called for an open dialogue in real time, with the involvement of all the existing organizations, but also of individual Jews. She noted that any world Jewish parliament or initiative should also represent small communities just as much as the large ones and all the streams in Judaism. On the one hand, she said, it must reflect the fact that 80% of world Jewry today lives in Israel and the United States but must also give weight to the rest of the Diaspora. Current technology makes it possible to follow and participate in the debates from anywhere in the world. Her first proposal is that a request from %0.2 of Diaspora Jewry should oblige the Knesset to hold a debate on the relevant issue.
Marina Solodkin, MK (Kadima), added that “to a certain extent, Facebook is already doing this today, making contact with all Jews around the world simultaneously”, while Avinoam Bar-Yosef, President of the Jewish People Policy Institute, stressed that Israel must accept mutual responsibility with the Jewish People and take their needs into account.” Dani Wassner, Media Director of the Jewish Federations of North America, also welcomed the proposal, noting that Diaspora Jews must feel that their voice is heard in Israel and specifically in the Knesset.
Read the whole thing.
This may come as a disappointment to some of you, but I vehemently disagree with this proposal. People in the diaspora don't pay taxes here, don't ride the buses or drive cars here, don't send their kids to school here, and don't send their kids to the army or national service here. We are the Jewish state, and we have a responsibility to ensure the continuation of the Jewish people and to offer a haven to Jews in distress. We are not, however, required to give a voice in our governance to people who don't live here. If you want to be part of deciding the country's direction, please put your money where you mouth is, and get on a plane and make aliya.
I look at this proposal as an underhanded way to minimize the influence the greater influence that certain groups have in Israel than they have abroad, and to maximize the influence of groups that have a lot of influence abroad and very little influence in Israel.
והמבין יבין.
Labels: Israel's Jewish character, Israeli Knesset, Jewish activism
Daniel Gordis: Beinart's right: There is a crisis between American Jews and Israel
Daniel Gordis writes that Peter Beinart (pictured) is right: There is a crisis between American Jews and Israel.
But not quite the one Beinart thinks there is (Hat Tip:
Ricky G).
Beinart’s problem, most fundamentally, is that the American liberalism with which he is so infatuated does not comfortably have a place for Jewish ethnic nationalism.
Throughout the book, the words “liberal” or “democratic” are always positives. And what means “negative” or “shameful”? In Beinart’s book, the word is “tribal.” Every time he uses the word “tribal,” he means “distasteful.” “Liberalism was out,” he laments early in the book, and “tribalism was in.” Or “ethically, the ADL and AJC are caught between the liberalism that defined organized American Jewish life before 1967 and the tribalism that has dominated it since.” “Among younger non-Orthodox Jews,” he later says smugly, “tribalism is in steep decline.” What is wrong with the settlers is that they have “tribal privilege” much “like the British in India, Serbs in Kosovo, and whites in the segregated South.”
Really? Israel, in which Beduin women graduate from medical school, is like the segregated South? Surely Beinart knows better. So why the relentless attack?
BEINART’S PROBLEM isn’t really with Israel. It’s with Judaism. Bottom line, what troubles Beinart isn’t what’s happened to Zionism. What troubles him is the dimension of Jewish life that he can’t abide, but of which Zionism insists on reminding him. And that element is the undeniable fact that Judaism is tribal.
...
Beinart’s real problem is that Israel is not, and was never meant to be, a felafel-eating, Hebrew speaking version of the United States. It is not ethnic-neutral. It was created, and our children die for it, not simply so there can be another democracy in the Middle East. Is one more democracy worth my soldier son’s risking his life? No, it’s not. Israel is about the revitalization of the Jewish people. It is, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “of the Jews, by the Jews and for the Jews,” all while protecting and honoring those who are not Jewish. Are we perfect? Hardly. But do we aspire to America’s ideal of a democracy? Not at all. We’re about something very different.
As Beinart himself admits, his cadre of mostly young American Jews is essentially Jewishly illiterate. They know nothing of Judaism’s intellectual depth, can say nothing about the classical Jewish canon, have no sense of what great ideas Judaism has brought to the world. They are thus utterly incapable of articulating what a Jewish state not committed to America’s ideals might be about. Confused and disappointed, they grow ashamed of us. For us to fit their universalistic world, in which nothing Jewish is of supreme value, they need us to be perfect. When we’re not, they cannot abide us.
...
It is no accident that Beinart’s book is among the most discussed – and reviled – in recent memory. For the book is not really about Israel. It is about the unsustainable new Judaism of which he is a selfappointed prophet, and to which, sadly, many young American Jews seem to be attracted, its self-consuming malignant core notwithstanding.
Read the whole thing. I think Gordis has nailed it.
Labels: Daniel Gordis, Israel's Jewish character, Peter Beinart
Israel to drop Arabic and English as official languages?
Shaviua tov, a good week to everyone.
This post is being written on Friday afternoon. Posting may be sporadic again tonight as I am spending the night as the companion to my friend's son and son-in-law (two different friends have a son and a daughter who married each other), who is in isolation in Hadassah Hospital after having a bone marrow transplant this past week.
Please pray for Moshe Aharon ben Leah Tzipora.
Please pray also for Feige Reizel bat Sara, another friend's mother who had an appendicitis attack on Thursday and is now unconscious and on a respirator.
A bill has been introduced in the Knesset to
remove Arabic's status as an official language of Israel. And that's the least significant part of the bill.
Forty lawmakers from both the coalition and opposition Wednesday submitted a proposal to the Knesset for a new Basic Law that would change the accepted definition of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state."
The bill, initiated by MKs Avi Dichter (Kadima ), Zeev Elkin (Likud ) and David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu ), and supported by 20 of the 28 Kadima MKs, would make democratic rule subservient to the state's definition as "the national home for the Jewish people." [Keep in mind that this is Haaretz and they likely make the bill sound as ominous as possible. CiJ].
The legislation, a private member's bill, won support from Labor, Atzamaut, Yisrael Beiteinu and National Union lawmakers.
Sources at the Knesset say the law currently has broad support, and they believe it will be passed during the Knesset's winter session.
According to Elkin, the law is intended to give the courts reasoning that supports "the state as the Jewish nation state in ruling in situations in which the Jewish character of the state clashes with its democratic character."
Elkin said: "The courts deal with this issue quite a lot, such as with the Law of Return as a discriminatory law."
The bill redefines basic consensus regarding the character of the state. For example, it also proposes that Hebrew would be the only official language in Israel, as opposed to the present situation - based on current mandatory law, Arabic and English are also recognized as official languages.
The bill accords Arabic "special status," and states that Arabic speakers "have the right to linguistic access to the services of the state, as determined by law."
Read the whole thing. I look at this as a reaction to the overreaching by our uber-Leftist Supreme Court. All in all, I think it's a good thing - it's long since time for Israel to promote its Jewish character. By the way, most Western countries have
only one official language.
Labels: Arabic, English, Israel's Jewish character
