31 December 2013

We Need Constant Reminding

28 Tevet 5774

We apparently need constant reminding that we are a separate people and a unique nation - am segulah v'goy kadosh, unlike all the others in the world.  And the world never tires of doing the job for us.

"If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would be passed by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions." (Abba Eban)

Wake up and smell the coffee! Zeh lo stam!

The World's Deadly Obsession With Israel

...Israel is treated differently than other nations. ...The focus and disproportionate criticism on Israel is clearly not new.  It's as old as the state itself.... The first casualty of the Israel obsession is Israel's citizens, as its government is often pressured into taking actions contrary to its security needs.

"Contrary to its security needs"
- like freeing terrorist-murderers; like chopping the heart out of our homeland and making it another rocket-launching pad. It's not without a reason.


From the Song of Ha'azinu (Devarim 32):

...When the Most High gave nations their homes

And set the divisions of man,
He fixed the boundaries of peoples
In relation to Israel's numbers.
For the Lord's portion is His people,
Jacob His own allotment.
He found him in a desert region,
In an empty howling waste.
He engirded him, watched over him,
Guarded him as the pupil of His eye.
Like an eagle who rouses his nestlings,
Gliding down to his young,
So did He spread His wings and take him,
Bear him along on His pinions;
The Lord alone did guide him,
No alien god at His side.
He set him atop the highlands,
To feast on the yield of the earth;
He fed him honey from the crag,
And oil from the flinty rock,
Curd of kine and milk of flocks;
With the best of lambs,
And rams of Bashan, and he-goats;
With the very finest wheat —
And foaming grape-blood was your drink.
So Jeshurun grew fat and kicked —
You grew fat and gross and coarse —
He forsook the God who made him
And spurned the Rock of his support.
They incensed Him with alien things,
Vexed Him with abominations.
They sacrificed to demons, no-gods,
Gods they had never known,
New ones, who came but lately,
Who stirred not your fathers' fears.
You neglected the Rock that begot you,
Forgot the God who brought you forth.

The Lord saw and was vexed
And spurned His sons and His daughters.
He said:
I will hide My countenance from them,
And see how they fare in the end.
For they are a treacherous breed,
Children with no loyalty in them.
They incensed Me with no-gods,
Vexed Me with their futilities;
I'll incense them with a no-folk,

[The so-called 'Palestinian People'] 
Vex them with a nation of fools.
For a fire has flared in My wrath
And burned to the bottom of Sheol,
Has consumed the earth and its increase,
Eaten down to the base of the hills.
I will sweep misfortunes on them,
Use up My arrows on them:
Wasting famine, ravaging plague,
Deadly pestilence, and fanged beasts
Will I let loose against them,
With venomous creepers in dust.
The sword shall deal death without,
As shall the terror within,
To youth and maiden alike,
The suckling as well as the aged.
I might have reduced them to naught,
Made their memory cease among men,
But for fear of the taunts of the foe,
Their enemies who might misjudge
And say, "Our own hand has prevailed;

None of this was wrought by the Lord!"
For they are a folk void of sense,
Lacking in all discernment.
Were they wise, they would think upon this,
Gain insight into their future:

"How could one have routed a thousand,
Or two put ten thousand to flight,
Unless their Rock had sold them,
The Lord had given them up?"
For their rock is not like our Rock,
In our enemies' own estimation.

...Yea, their day of disaster is near,
And destiny rushes upon them.

"'Return to Me, ...and I will return to you,' said the Lord of Hosts."

3 comments:

  1. Thanks!

    We do.

    And I was reminded about this facet of this parashah.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That was beautiful. May we see redemption soon.

    ReplyDelete