Opuscula Yeshiva = School Test yeshiva “boys”

ONCE AGAIN THE HARIDEEM (religious extremists) are fighting for their stipends and to keep their “boys” out of the army.

Meanwhile, all other reasonably healthy males have to risk their lives for the “boys” sitting on their backsides, safe from any danger.

THIS “ESCAPE TO YESHIVOT” is due to an agreement the harideem made with the same man that was prepared to murder fellow Jews. The yeshivot managed to be part of the left-wing Labor governments; governments unable to reach a peace agreement with any neighbors during Israel’s first 39 years (1948 to 1977).

After Labor was finally defeated by Menachem Began and his Likud party (vs. Netanyahu’s Likud party), the yeshivot climbed into bed with Likud and Began — in order to have a government that finally managed a peace treaty with Egypt.

So much for history.

Everywhere students from First Grade to Bachelor degree candidates regularly are tested. In primary and secondary schools, failure to “make the grade” often means summer school of, worst case, the student has to repeat the academic year.

At the university level, failure to progress may mean the end of a college “career.”

In the military, failure to perform means separation from the service (hopefully before the person causes injury or death to his fellows).

 

TEST THE YESHIVA “BOYS”

 

In order to receive rabbinical ordination a potential posek — a person who can rule on religion-related questions — the person must prove his understanding of Jewish law.

For most men, reaching that level of understanding takes several years.

Yeshiva “boys” should be tested to see if the are learning and retaining anything. Those whose progress is questionable should be invited to move on; to leave to yeshiva.

The rare genius should be encouraged to continue his education, but at another yeshiva so the student will learn from others. This has been common practice since at least talmudic times.

Some editions of Avot provide mini-biographies to those cited, including the masters under whom they studied. This “find a new teacher” is good advice for collegians going for a masters or PhD — go to a different university with different professors to avoid “in grown” learning.

There is no question that we need knowledgeable rabbis and lay leaders, but these people need to be aware of the real world, unlike the Vilna Gaon who lived a sheltered life.

Yeshiva “boys” who can’t cut it; who are “hiding out” in yeshivot while their wife works and manages a household and while others are inducted into the military that protects these “boys” need to be dismissed.

“Boys” that are “invited out” of a yeshiva need to do SOME type national service; if not the military, then work in a hospital or a school; clean up their own neighborhoods. Learn a trade or profession and get off the dole (and give the wives a break).

Get a job ?? Blasphemy! Torah (actually talmud) study must be a full time job, just as it was during the talmudic period.

Wait! Some of the leading lights of the period worked!

Not just as rabbis or teachers, but as shoe makers, farmers, beer makers, and more.

THEY studied AND worked.

Shammai said (Avot1 Mishnah 15) make the study of the law a “fixed duty.”
(עשה תורתך קבע) He did NOT say to study all day.

Gamaliel ben Judah HaNasi said (Avot 2 Mishnah 2) “Excellent is the study of the law in combination with some worldly pursuit for the exertion entailed by them both makes thoughts of sin to be forgotten.”

Above English and Hebrew from Ethics of the Fathers, Judaica Press, ©1964,ISBN 0-910818-15-0

Even today, many rabbis have “real jobs.” I know of several programmers, an electrical engineer (who used to be an Army rabbi/paratrooper), a holistic medicine practitioner. I also know rabbis who work as teachers and congregational rabbis, who work as kashrut supervisors and congregational rabbis. These men are not “kolelers” nor “yeshiva boys.”

 

SINCE STUDY OF TORAH is supposed to protect Israel — actually, the “boys” study the talmuds and later writings — let the yeshivot acquire trailers, caravans, and move their students close to the borders. If study in far-away Jerusalem is good, study at the border MUST be better.

The soldier could see that the yeshiva boys are sharing the danger and each might develop a little respect for the other.

 

TO BE FAIR

 

Dodging the draft is not limited to yeshiva "boys" in Israel.

The U.S. has a long history of draft dodging dating back to the Revolutionary War.

A few recent draft dodgers include (according to Showbiz CheatSheet):
Bill Clinton
Bill O’Reilly
Dick Cheney
Donald Trump
John Wayne
Mitt Romney
Rudy Giuliani
Rush Limbaugh
Ted Nugent

Eisenhower, LBJ, JFK, Nixon all served. Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. tried to enlist in the Army in December 1944 but failed the physical exam because of a double hernia, color blindness, and calcification of the lungs.

For the record, this scrivener enlisted in the regular Air Force, unlike many future politicians and entertainers who opted for the (Air) National Guard.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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Opuscula Are Netanyahu, Israel’s gov’t Really crazy?

INSANITY IS DEFINED AS "DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS"?

Attribution: Albert Einstein (or Samuel Langhorne Clemens or Ben Franklin, or ...)

If Einstein, et al, are correct, than Israel’s political and military leaders are “insane.”

Once more they have been conned into a ceasefire guaranteed to last only as long as it takes Hamas and other jihadists to rearm.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Netanyahu and his sycophantic political and military associates, by the definition of “insane,” must truly BE insane.

Crazy.

Also derelict in their sworn duties to protect Israel and all its citizens, residents, and visitors.

I’m not sure if “Crazy Eddie”¹ or “Madman Muntz”² controls Netanyahu’s decision making process, or if it is one of all of the six (!) Stooges who advise him, but to agree once more — in face of repeated “cease fires while we rearm” appeals from Hamas et al — is the height of irresponsibility.

 

 

Normally I keep silent re Israeli politics.

I’m not there.

But when I see, again and again and again the “modern” Likud’s caving to terrorists while leaving Israeli citizens, residents, and visitors in danger from a “stray” missile or a few hundred stray missiles — it is too much.

What frightens Netanyahu?

The UN?

Leftists?

The UN will condemn Israel no matter what. The only way the UN will have kind words for Israel is when it disappears; when the Israelis — Christians, Jews, Muslims, and whomever else — surrenders their lives as Gandhi proposed during the holocaust. (Gandhi also proposed that the English surrender, telling them to invite the nazis to take over their island, live in their homes.)

 

Gandhi 6 April 1947 quote on Muslims: “If the Muslims want to kill us, we must face death bravely.”

 

Knowing the people condemning Israel now for failing to die at its enemies’ hands will continue to condemn Israel regardless, why don’t Netanyahu and the generals let the army do what armies are trained to do: WIN WARS.

When President Harry S. Truman ordered the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima to end the war with Japan, the world gasped and then got on with life.

When the U.S. and English firebombed Dresden into ashes, the world gasped and moved on. (The fire bombing followed nazi fire bombs on England’s tiny island; just as Hamas missiles fall on Israel from the south and Hezbollah missiles are launched from the north.)

Someone needs to inform Netanyahu and the generals that war is NOT fought by Marquis of Queensbury rules. Germany’s Erwin Rommel had much to say about warfare, words that, along with U.S. Gen. Geo. S. Patton’s thoughts, should be studied in Israel. Neither man would have settled for a cease fire — ESPECIALLY knowing it would be broken by the rearmed enemy in the near future.

It is not mere speculation that Hamas, once rearmed, will again rain missiles on Israel. Next time — and there WILL be a “next time” — Hamas’ missiles may be joined by missiles from Hezbollah. Both are, after all, funded by Iran.

If I recall correctly, Netanyahu sneered at Gen. Ganz, noting he had no political experience. Netanyahu has political experience, but only managed a captain’s rank in the IDF. Perhaps it is time for Israel to follow the American Indian’s practice of having different chiefs for different times; most had a war chief who was in control when, and only when, the tribe was at war. In Israel, let the Ramat Kal — the ranking general — drive the military action.

I suppose the real question is: Is there a general in Israel that the soldiers will follow. I’m not there; I don’t have a clue.

What I DO know is that Netanyahu, by failing to finish the job in Gaza, it giving carte blanc to Hamas to shell and kill more Israeli civilians whenever Hamas feels ready.

No one seems overly concerned with Israeli “collateral damage.” Perhaps Israel should be less concerned about “collateral damage” in Gaza. Alternatively, figure out a way to arm Gazans who want to depose Hamas and similar terrorist organizations. Israel may be reluctant to arm Gazans, recalling that the Afghans, armed by the U.S. to fight the Russians, now use those same arms to kill Americans.

Hammer and anvil; rock and a hard place.

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_Muntz

3. http://tinyurl.com/y3bco53n

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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Opuscula Israel government: Caught between Hammer & anvil

Hamas & Friends have put Israel between the hammer and the anvil, or if you prefer, a rock and a hard place.

UNLESS ISRAEL “PUTS DOWN” Hamas & Friends — other Islamist crazies — the northern Islamist crazies in Lebanon will think that Israel is weak; that it cannot defeat both Iran proxies.

Militarily it CAN defeat Hamas et al in Gaza and Hezbollah in the north.

The problem for Israel is “collateral damage.”

The UN will rage about nasty Israel which never should defend itself from the kind Muslims who want to destroy it. Gandhi lives on at the UN.

Leftists the world over also will tear their hair, beat their chests, and chastise Israel for responding to enemy attacks in a “non-proportional” manner.

Here’s a thought. If Israel’s population is, say, 9 million¹ and worldwide population of Muslim-controlled nations is in excess of 1 BILLION² that would mean for every Israeli — Christian, Jew, Muslim, and “other” — killed, maybe 70,000 Muslims should die to keep things within the UN’s “proportional” stupidity. (I lost my slide rule so my 1-for-70,000 may be conservative.)

 

CEASE FIRE

When Hamas et al has used nearly all of it’s Iranian-funded missiles, it will cry to Egypt to arrange a cease fire with Israel.

Just as it did before this latest spate of missiles fell on Israel.

And just as it did before.

Israel’s politicians and generals accept the cease fire and, once again, put the population in danger.

This is NOT the Likud of Began and (David) Levy. Indeed, it is about as forceful as the former Labor governments — and Israel’s enemies know it.

Israel CAN, and HAS, made lasting peace agreements with Egypt (first) and Jordan. Began was Prime Minister when Anwar El Sadat came to Jerusalem to sign the treaty with Began and Israel. (For his effort, Islamists in Egypt assassinated Sadat.)

 

Above: Began and Sadat in Jerusalem

 

Interestingly, Began tried to give Gaza back to Egypt. Sadat was a better bargainer than Began and refused Gaza. Sinai, yes; Gaza, no. Brilliant man, Sadat.

Unless Israel wants to continue harassment from the Hamas & Friends and Hezbollah, and possibly Syria’s Bashar al-Assad who butchers his own countrymen, it MUST put down Hamas forcefully, so forcefully that it no longer is a threat, even with Iranian aid.

Unfortunately, with several Islamists groups vying for power in Gaza, the civilian “collateral damage” count will likely be far higher than Israel would like. (Despite UN and leftists “news” reports, Israel DOES try to avoid true civilian causalities. It has been proven again and again to the embarrassment of the provocateurs.)

Israel does not want to control Gaza; it would prefer Egypt to rule the strip, at least until a government that wants good for the governed — peace, a decent economy, plans to restore infrastructure, and to restore dignity to its people.

The U.S. did it in Japan after World War 2; Egypt, with Israeli cooperation, might be able to succeed in 2020.

But first, Israel must — there no longer is an option — destroy Hamas and its jihadist cohorts.

If “the world” wants to help the civilians of Gaza, it should figure out a way to keep Iranian money and influence out of the strip.

Failing that, Israel can expect its northern communities to once again come under missile fire.

Again.

Sources

1. http://tinyurl.com/yynwb8jj

2. http://tinyurl.com/kgwmcoo

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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