The Catholic Church as an institution has come a long way with regard to its attitude toward the Jewish people. But, apparently, it still has, as they say, a ways to go.
You can read what I mean here:
Category Archives: Anti-Semitism
Mikeitz – Low-Key is a Lesson for the Ages
“Why display yourselves when you are satiated, before the children of Esav and Yishmael?” (Rashi, Beraishis 42:1).
That is the Gemara’s (Taanis 10b) understanding of Yaakov Avinu’s exhortation to his sons, lama tisra’u (understood, apparently, as “why be conspicuous?”). His rhetorical question was posed to ensure that “they will [the children of Esav and Yishmael] will not be jealous of you….” as they journey to Mitzrayim to garner food during the famine.
Chazal say that, in general, “a person should not indulge in luxury” [ibid]. But especially when it might generate jealousy and resultant animosity.
It is a lesson for the ages, and needed throughout the ages. Among others, the Kli Yakar, who died in 1619, lamented the fact that some Jews’ homes and possessions in his time proclaimed their material success. The problem has hardly disappeared today.
(One of the things that attracted me to the community where I live was the basic uniformity of the homes there. There are no mansions here, not even McMansions.)
Several commentaries wonder at the Gemara’s reference, in the opening quote above, to the progeny of Esav and Yishmael. Yaakov was in Cna’an. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Chazal to make their point about not standing out with regard to Yaakov’s neighbors, the Cna’anim? There’s no reason to believe that Esav and Yishmael’s people were nearby.
What occurs to me is that there is a poignant prescience in Chazal’s comment. They may have sensed, or even foreseen, a distant but long-running future of Klal Yisrael, where so many of its members would be residing, as has been the case for many centuries, amid cultures associated with Esav and Yishmael.
© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran
Scandal With CAIR
On a recent Friday night, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held its “30th anniversary gala” in Washington, DC. Too bad you probably missed it.
Something the celebrants didn’t know was that some bad news (at least for them) lay on the horizon. To read what it was, please click here.
Wolves, Wolves Everywhere
With all the wacky wokey warriors spewing hatred for Israel and Jews on college campuses and city streets, one could be forgiven for not noticing the proliferation of anti-Semites on the other end of the political spectrum.
But they’re there, and, in a way, more threatening. You can read about some of them here.
Annexation Vexation
Nations’ annexation of territory, although it tends to cause much clutching of pearls, is not rare.
But the proposed-in-some-circles annexation of Yehudah and Shomron (the “West Bank”) raises an issue that needs to be carefully thought through.
To read what, click here.
The Worst of Times
My lie-dar is well honed; it beeps when my eyes lay upon tendentious falsehoods in media reports.
To read of what set off some recent beeps, please click here.
Lech Lecha – Of Banners and Bloodshed
It’s considered uncouth, or worse, these days to assign any sort of “national character” to peoples of different ethnic or geographical backgrounds. And we are well advised to not assume anything about any individual – say, to assume that a German will be punctual or a Canadian, polite. But meticulousness is a prominent aspect of German society; and civility, a notable Canadian middah. Anthropological and sociological cultural norms exist.
Yishmael is commonly perceived as the progenitor of some Arab peoples, an association that would seem to dovetail disturbingly with how Avraham’s first son is characterized in the parsha, as a “pereh adam,” an “unbridled man” given to violence (see Rashi, Beraishis 21:9), someone whose “hand is against all others” and, as a result, causes “all others’ hands to be against him”(ibid 16:12).
The striking savagery wrought by Arab terrorists, from the Hebron massacre of 1929 to October 7, 2023 (and countless attacks on innocents between those events) lend credence to the idea that Yishmael’s middah persists in our world.
Strikingly, the Muqaddimah, a famous 14th century text by Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, seems to agree with the Torah’s characterization of Yishmael. Ibn Khaldun engages in blunt judgments about various populations, including his fellow Arabs, who, he writes, are the most savage of people; he compares them to wild, predatory animals.
The notion that violence is tolerated in – or even embraced by – parts of the Arab world, more than in other societies, is evoked by the flags of some modern Arab states. That of the largest one, Saudi Arabia, features a sword (and the country’s official emblem, two crossed ones). Oman’s and Hamas’ flags also prominently feature swords. Hands clenching AK-47s are on the Fatah movement’s flag, which also includes the image of a hand grenade and is graced with a blood-red Arabic text that probably (just guessing here) doesn’t read “give peace a chance”.
The Palestinian Authority’s “national anthem,” called “Fida’i,” begins, “Warrior, warrior, warrior” and ends “I will live as a warrior, I will remain a warrior, I will die as a warrior…”
No individual Arab should ever be assumed to be a violent person, of course. But a proclivity for violence seems to be part of Arab culture, a tragic reality noted not only by Ibn Khaldun but presaged by, lihavdil, the Torah.
© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran
The Pope Owes Jews an Apology
You can read why here.
Ugly Fringes
We have Tucker Carlson to thank for creating some long-needed pan-partisan unity of late. To read how he managed that, please click here.
Ki Savo – Getting it into Our Heads
From its opening words through many of the parsha’s laws and instructions, Eretz Yisrael is central: Bikkurim, maasros, the settings-up of the Torah-inscribed stones, the brachos and klalos on Har Grizim and Har Eival. The brachos that precede the tochachah are “on the land that Hashem swore to your forefathers, to give you” (Devarim 28:11), and exile from the land is part of the tochachah.
Yet, even as Moshe speaks about Eretz Yisrael, he adds: “Pay attention and listen, Yisrael! This day, you have become a people to Hashem, your G-d” (27:9).
A people. This day.
Comments Rav Shamshon Refael Hirsch:
“Today, before you get the impending possession of the Land, the possession of the Torah is what makes you into a nation. You can lose the land, as indeed you may, but the Torah, and your everlasting duty to it, remains your everlasting unloseable bond which united you as a nation.
“This fundamental fact, deeply buried in Yisrael’s being, differentiates it sharply from that way all other nations have been formed, the secret of the national immortality of the Jews, with all the consequences for Israel’s future that are attached to it.”
That echoes Rav Saadia Gaon’s declaration: “Our nation is only a nation through its Torah.”
It’s a timely thought, when the Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael is threatened from multiple directions. A merit for preserving the safety and security of Klal Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael lies in commitment to what makes us a nation.
Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev noted how the assurance that “the peoples of the earth… will fear you” (Devarim 28:10), which R’ Eliezer Hagadol ties to our wearing “tefillin shebirosh” (Berachos 6a), doesn’t seem to work.
He explained that shebirosh isn’t the same as al harosh. It isn’t the fact of wearing tefillin that protects us from our enemies. It is our internalization of the words and message that inhabits the tefillin. It has to penetrate “into our heads.”
© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran