From this week’s Haftara (taken only from the Prophets): Ezekiel Chapter 37
And you, O mortal, take a stick and write on it, “Of Judah and the Israelites associated with him”; and take another stick and write on it, “Of Joseph—the stick of Ephraim—and all the House of Israel associated with him.”
וְקָרַ֨ב אֹתָ֜ם אֶחָ֧ד אֶל־אֶחָ֛ד לְךָ֖ לְעֵ֣ץ אֶחָ֑ד וְהָי֥וּ לַאֲחָדִ֖ים בְּיָדֶֽךָ׃
Bring them close to each other, so that they become one stick, joined together in your hand.
This is the context for a self imposed commandment to draw us near to each other:
And I was told, “O mortal, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone; we are doomed.’
לָכֵן֩ הִנָּבֵ֨א וְאָמַרְתָּ֜ אֲלֵיהֶ֗ם כֹּה־אָמַר֮ אֲדֹנָ֣י יֱהֹוִה֒ הִנֵּה֩ אֲנִ֨י פֹתֵ֜חַ אֶת־קִבְרֽוֹתֵיכֶ֗ם וְהַעֲלֵיתִ֥י אֶתְכֶ֛ם מִקִּבְרוֹתֵיכֶ֖ם עַמִּ֑י וְהֵבֵאתִ֥י אֶתְכֶ֖ם אֶל־אַדְמַ֥ת יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
Prophesy, therefore, and say to them: Thus said the Sovereign GOD: I am going to open your graves and lift you out of the graves, O My people, and bring you to the land of Israel.
וִידַעְתֶּ֖ם כִּֽי־אֲנִ֣י יְהֹוָ֑ה בְּפִתְחִ֣י אֶת־קִבְרֽוֹתֵיכֶ֗ם וּבְהַעֲלוֹתִ֥י אֶתְכֶ֛ם מִקִּבְרוֹתֵיכֶ֖ם עַמִּֽי׃
You shall know, O My people, that I am GOD, when I have opened your graves and lifted you out of your graves.
וְנָתַתִּ֨י רוּחִ֤י בָכֶם֙ וִחְיִיתֶ֔ם וְהִנַּחְתִּ֥י אֶתְכֶ֖ם עַל־אַדְמַתְכֶ֑ם וִידַעְתֶּ֞ם כִּֽי־אֲנִ֧י יְהֹוָ֛ה דִּבַּ֥רְתִּי וְעָשִׂ֖יתִי נְאֻם־יְהֹוָֽה׃ {פ}
I will put My breath into you and you shall live again, and I will set you upon your own soil. Then you shall know that I, GOD, have spoken and have acted”—declares GOD.
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“Exiled Murdered Shunned . . .” Can we come back from the precipice?
In his final New York Times column of the year, Bret Stephens writes on antisemitism and the global response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks. Definitely worth the read.
Here’s a link with no firewall: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/opinion/october-7-jews-hamas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HU0.E7tB.6q6mHqglbeKf&hpgrp=k-abar&smid=url-share
Excerpt ^ — >: “There’s a historical pattern. In the early 1920s, the most important scientist in Germany was Albert Einstein, the most important politician was Walther Rathenau and the most important philosopher was Edmund Husserl. All Jews. They wound up exiled, murdered or shunned.
Today, the U.S. secretaries of state, Treasury and homeland security are Jewish, as is the majority leader in the Senate and the president’s chief of staff.
Too often in Jewish history, our zenith turns out to be our precipice. Too often in world history, that precipice is also the end of free society itself. Antisemitism is a problem for democracy because hatred for Jews, whatever name or cause it travels under, is never a hatred for Jews only. It’s a hatred for distinctiveness: Jews as Jews in Christian lands; Israel as a Jewish state in Muslim lands. Authoritarians seek uniformity. Jews represent difference.”
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Young Jews in our times — “identity”:
“Today, the chickens have come home to roost.
No fire wall Link: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/jewish-voices-hate
In a Tablet magazine article ^–>, Joel Greenberg, a former prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, suggests that Jewish institutions that welcomed anti-Zionist voices have contributed to a lack of support for Israel among young adults. “Today, the chickens have come home to roost.
Author Note: Joel K. Greenberg is a co-founder of the Seed the Dream Foundation, one of the largest family foundations devoted primarily to Jewish causes, and a former prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations.
Excerpted from his Introduction:
- “My family and I used to be members at a Conservative synagogue. It seemed like a good match for us. We celebrated many family milestones there, and became friends with a number of families and other congregants, including a prominent judge.
- But 20 years ago, something strange happened. The rabbi invited several Jewish speakers to address the congregation, from the pulpit, about the “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS) movement against Israel—namely, in favor of BDS. The rabbi argued that “the Jewish tent” was, or ought to be, large enough to accommodate all reasonable opinions, and he believed this was one.”
Young people are aligning with Hamas, and even Jewish students are comparing Hamas’ murderous attacks to the Jewish freedom fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Holocaust survivors, whose tormentors I helped to track down, have tragically lived to see young people, including their own descendants, tweeting — from the safety of some coffee shop in Brooklyn — Hamas propaganda against Israel. These young people didn’t simply absorb these dangerous ideas from the ether. In addition to hearing it at their universities and in the general interest media, some heard it in their synagogues and in their Jewish community centers and from Jewish organizations — so eager to appear fashionable and progressive that they legitimized people calling for their own destruction.”
