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There is no such thing as ‘aliyah bullying’

Why ‘aliyah bullying’ is just a massive red herring.

For most of us who live in places where Chabad has a presence, we’ve got used to their ubiquitous little tables set up with tefillin, and the inspiring way they encourage so many Jews who otherwise wouldn’t give the mitzvah of laying tefillin a second thought, as they run around their busy lives.

Come rain or shine, those Chabad shlichim don’t miss an opportunity to call Jews over to them on the street, and ask them if they’d like to lay tefillin.

Let me ask you something:

Is that ‘tefillin bullying’?

I mean, there are 613 mitzvahs, and not everyone is going to have the privilege of doing all of them in one lifetime. Surely, when the Chabad shlichim are coaxing people to spend a few precious moment connecting to God, and putting God’s mitzvah of laying tefillin ahead of what they themselves wanted to be doing at that precise moment, that is a good thing, isn’t it?

Let’s explore another example.

Say, we have a guy who doesn’t eat kosher. Say, that guy has a ‘religious’ sister who is trying to encourage him to swear off the pork, and to only eat kosher meat. Let’s eavesdrop on that conversation, a little:

Sister: You know, my dear brother, every time you eat another rasher of bacon, it’s disconnecting you from God and doing terrible damage to your soul. You are such a refined Jewish neshama! Eating pork products is so beneath you, sweet brother. And also, God doesn’t like it very much.

Brother: I find your comment to be kosher bullying. You telling me that God doesn’t like it when I eat pork doesn’t help me to feel good about myself as a Jew, and it doesn’t help anyone.

Do we agree with him?

What about the Jewish boy who is seriously dating that nice, non-Jewish girlfriend? His mother realizes that things are getting serious, and arranges to have a last-ditch talk with him:

Mother: I know I didn’t raise you right, I know I didn’t take the Torah seriously, I know I put what was easy and comfortable for myself ahead of what God really wanted me to do, and how He really wanted me to live, as a Jew – but please, I’m begging you, don’t marry that girl! It’ll devastate me, and end 3,000 years of Jewish continuity, because your kids won’t be Jewish!

Son: Mother, I feel intimidated by these kind of comments. I’m fed up with all your nonsense about your grandchildren not being Jewish. I’m standing up for my rights to live exactly how I want. There are many, varied reasons why I just couldn’t find a Jewish girl to date, and at this stage, I don’t believe I need to.

[Mother bursts into heart-wrenching sobs].

Son (increasingly defensive…): I’m just defending my right to live my life and not be attacked because I can’t just break up with the woman I love and marry someone Jewish instead. Well done to you, mother, that you married a Jew, but spare a thought for those who have tried and failed to find a Jewish spouse. I had to date outside the faith just to get a girlfriend, and I have other Jewish friends who won’t even consider marrying a Jew now, because it was so hard for them on the Jewish dating scene.

Is this “don’t marry out” bullying?

And if the answer is ‘yes’, is that a bad thing?

If something is a mitzvah, if something is a Torah commandment, then surely we should be encouraging other Jews to do it, with all our strength? Part of the reason I’m so in awe of my local Chabad shlichim here in Jerusalem is that they are actively encouraging Jews to do mitzvahs every single day.

Come listen to the Purim Megillah!

Come join us for the Pesach Seder!

Come participate in Kaparot, come listen to a lecture on the Tanya, come give some tzedaka to build our new shul!

Do I have the wrong end of the stick here?

Instead of thinking how awesomely inspiring it is that they are constantly encouraging me to move out of my comfort zone, and to move past my laziness and apathy and yeoush and disinterest, I should be accusing them of mitzvah bullying, instead?

That doesn’t sound right to me.

Everyone has their reasons why certain mitzvahs are hard for them. For example, the mitzvah of covering my hair as a married woman is really, really hard for me. It was so hard for me, I didn’t do it for the first eight years I was married.

But that doesn’t meant that I started justifying what I was doing to myself, and explaining how my ‘mission’ in life didn’t include covering my hair, or how my big, important job working for the British government meant I had a free pass on covering my hair.

I didn’t cover my hair because I wasn’t sufficiently motivated to cover my hair, and my personal circumstances, outlook, work (and crazy, crazy big hair!) all made it very difficult to do.

But I still acknowledged I was in the wrong, and that God really did want me to cover my hair.

And, I was still very impressed by my friends and acquaintances who were covering their hair full-time, because I knew how much inner strength and determination that required.

So what changed?

Things changed when we finally got to Israel, and my parnassa hit the skids, and I started to realise that me not covering my hair – as well as a whole bunch of other ‘little’ things, like not benching after bread, and wearing jeans, and going to the movies – actually had some serious spiritual consequences, and was causing me a lot of issues in my actual day-to-day life.

I started covering my hair with such a bad grace – but my shalom bayit picked up instantly, and my parnassa also rebounded (not immediately. God likes to maintain something of an illusion with these things, to preserve our free choice.)

So now, I happily choose to cover my (still crazy….) hair, not because I like the mitzvah, not because it’s easy – it’s still so very, very hard, and I’ll post about all that another time – but because:

I realized this is what God wants.

And that doing what God wants makes my life so much easier and nicer.

There are certain spiritual rules God put in place for how He wants Jews to live, and how Jews can best maximize their spiritual potential. Sadly, plenty of Jews today don’t even know about these spiritual rules, and the mitzvoth that they are clothed in.

The fewer of these ‘rules’ a Jew operates by, the more difficult, stressful and challenging their lives inevitably will be.

So let’s ask this again, is it right to ‘lecture’ other Jews about doing mitzvoth?

That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? When people put out memes with “love your fellow Jew as yourself”, is that considered ‘lecturing’? How about if they share a shiur on avoiding sinat chinam and lashon hara?

Is that considered ‘lecturing’?

Couldn’t every single one of us turn around and say something like:

Nice for you, that you’re managing to avoid slandering people all the time and hating other Jews who are different, but some of us just couldn’t get there, hard as we tried. Some of didn’t have the strength to avoid participating in all the juicy gossip on Facebook. Some of us just couldn’t continue seeing the good in other people, some of us just had way too many bad middot to overcome to have the energy to start working on our own sinat chinam, even though we know deep down that’s preventing the geula and causing us so much suffering in our own lives.

But God is surely going to save me, despite all my bad middot and unrepentant aveirot! I don’t doubt that for a moment!

Couldn’t we all make that same argument about every mitzvah we find hard, and that we don’t really want to do?

And then what? Where does reward and punishment fit into this picture?

If a Jew can do anything they want, pick and choose their mitzvahs, then state that for sure, God is going to reward them exactly the same regardless of the mitzvahs they’re actually striving to do, or are saying they are ‘exempt’ from doing, that totally negates the concept of reward and punishment.

This is Judaism 101. This comes from Jewishvirtuallibrary.org:

The doctrine of reward and punishment is central to Judaism throughout the ages; that man receives his just reward for his good deeds and just retribution for his transgressions is the very basis of the conception of both human and divine justice.

Rambam states in the 11th of the 13 Principles of Faith that:

“God gives reward to he who does the commandments of the Torah and punishes those that transgress its admonishments and warnings. And the great reward is the life of the world to come; and the punishment is the cutting off of the soul [in the world to come]. And we already said regarding this topic what these are. And the verse that attests to this principle is (Exodus 32) “And now if You would but forgive their sins – and if not erase me from this book that You have written.” And God answered him, “He who sinned against Me I will erase from My book.” This is a proof that God knows the sinner and the fulfiller in order to mete out reward to one, and punishment to the other.”

Can you see the problem, here?

Moving to Israel is a mitzvah. (I know there are apparently ‘frum’ people who are so confused they are even doubting that, so please take a look at the daas Torah in this post, Deconstructing Aliyah, which sets out a whole bunch of real, actual Torah sources on the subject, if you’d like a change from all the ‘daas me‘ flying around the internet.)

So, if we’re going to start accusing other people of ‘aliyah bullying’ then we have to be consistent, and also start accusing other people of ‘kosher bullying’ and ‘tefillin bullying’ and ‘not marrying out’ bullying too, because as you can hopefully see for yourself, the same arguments are effectively playing out in each of these arenas.

It’s always hard to keep mitzvahs, in some ways. God expects us to keep striving out of comfort zone, to keep trying to give Him what He wants, and to not give up on the mitzvoth even when we can’t quite reach them.

I have so many mitzvoth I’m still struggling with, not least my own problems with lashon hara and anger.

I could turn around and give God a bunch of excuses why I still flip out and go ballistic – and they’d all be true! But that doesn’t change the picture that God says that getting angry is a very bad thing, and that He wants me to carry on working on it, until 120.

Sure, I can justify my bad behavior all I want.

But that doesn’t change the fact that God wants me to do better, and He wants me to get Him involved in really solving the issue.

So unless we’re also going to start accusing God of being a “good middot bully”, or a “keeping the Torah bully”,  it seems to me this whole ‘aliyah bullying’ idea is really just a massive red herring.

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Do Your Own Seder

A Seder Meal for One.

The day before Seder, I had a breathless conversation with an older single I know whose ‘plans had changed’ last minute (as they so often seem to do with this person), who needed a place to go for the Seder meal.

I said no.

I said no for a few reasons, not least because I had my hands full with a ton of non-religious family members who also believe that Seder isn’t actually something you ‘do’, at least, not yourself, but something that you show up for, say your lines, eat your boiled egg, then go home and tick the box.

But the person pulled a half-successful guilt trip on me that they had nowhere else to go blah blah blah so in the end I compromised and invited them for the morning meal after Seder.

I was so exhausted. I was so tired.

And this person stayed in my house for four hours on one pretext after another, until finally when they went to the bathroom, I saw an opportunity to escape and went ‘to sleep’ in my room until they finally got the message and left.

Recently, I’ve been thinking more and more about how so many of us unwittingly ‘enable’ bad behavior, and massive yetzer haras, through some misguided attempt to ‘do good in the world’. Sure, in theory, it’s a great wonderful, amazing thing to have people around your Seder table who otherwise would have no-where to go.

But at what point does it stop being a mitzvah?

At what point does enabling other people’s selfish, freeloading behavior stop being a good thing?

You know why that older single had no-where to go on Seder night? Because she’s exhausting to be around. That’s why. She doesn’t treat people so nicely and she has a lot of bad middot.

Do you know why I’m doing something completely different for Seder next year? Because even the very minimal requests I set for my Seder were ignored.

People didn’t buy haggadot for their kids….they didn’t prepare a tiny something about anything related to the Seder…they didn’t have the patience to sit through Hallel and made the fact they wanted to leave so obvious that there was no choice except to comply…they didn’t help-with-a-single-thing with the Seder.

They left it all to me.

Now, if they were 80 and feeble, fair enough. If they were ‘lost Jews’ who had never seen or heard of a Seder before in their life, fair enough. But that’s not the case. We’re the same age, and they’ve sat at someone else’s Seder every year since they were born, for more than four decades.

After I was inundated with so many people’s ‘freeloading behavior’ this year, and after I found myself getting so upset about it all, I realized there was something else going on, here, that God was trying to draw my attention to, namely:

I was enabling these people’s bad middot.

And I don’t want to do that anymore.

You might be reading this hand to mouth in horror, thinking what is the woman saying?! This is terrible, shocking, awful!!!!

It’s a free country, you’re allowed. We’ve all been so brainwashed into believing that we have to be the ‘solution’ to other people’s problems, it’s totally understandable if you are having that reaction. I also had that reaction to myself, initially, and thought I’d totally lost the plot. But then, I started to think things through more carefully in hitbodedut, and to dig a little deeper, and here’s what I came to:

God for sure wants me to help other people, as much as possible. At the same time, He for sure doesn’t want me to take all the responsibility for ensuring they have a Seder to go to, or people to hang out with, or a nice life.

For example, it says very clearly, that it’s the father of the household’s responsibility to recount the exodus to their children.

If that father has his head permanently in his business affairs, or prefers to play cards at the Seder table, or doesn’t value his own yiddishkeit enough to make any real effort to pass it on to his kids – it’s not down to me, to fix that problem.

What’s more, there’s the law of natural consequence at play here. The natural consequence of having guests who I experience as ungrateful, entitled, freeloaders is that I don’t want to have them back.

IFFFFF, guests make it clear that they really want to share the responsibility, IFFFFF they make a huge effort to participate, IFFFFF they offer to buy in the desserts, and clear the table, and wash up – then I probably would be extremely happy to have them back. Who wouldn’t be?

But, IFFFFF the guest is totally self-absorbed and self-occupied, IFFFFF they act like they are doing you a massive favor, by being there, IFFFFF they make ‘perfunctory’ noises about helping that you know aren’t the least bit sincere, and then scarper before the dishes have even been taken off the table – then, I really don’t want them back, until and unless something massive changes in their behavior and their attitude.

This is the law of natural consequence, and we ignore it at our peril.

As I was mulling all this over, I had a chat with a friend of mine, Gila, who I have invited for Seder a couple of times down the years, but who has always turned me down. Partially, it’s because Gila and I live in different cities. But the real reason is much more awe-inspiring:

Gila often does Seder all by herself.

I asked her if she would share her experience of that more widely, and she very generously agreed. Here’s what she told me, in her own words:

“Seder is a very personal experience, and I wanted to do it my own way, of course still within the framework of halacha. I read the ma nishtana myself, I did both sides of the ‘Mishar rotam’ dialogue that many Sephardim traditionally do at the beginning of the Seder. It could have been a bit weird or awkward, but I embraced Seder night, and I really enjoyed it.”

I asked Gila, why didn’t you want to go out and be a guest at someone else’s Seder? She told me:

“I really wanted to feel the holiday. I wanted to concentrate on the Seder, and not get so distracted by everything else that was going on around me. There are lots of segulot you can do when you’re having a Seder by yourself, so I really took advantage of it. I drank all the wine you’re supposed to, and I ate all the matzah.”

What happened about hiding the afikomen?

“I just put it away somewhere, so I didn’t see it. And I really enjoyed the idea that I really was eating the afikomen – and only the afikomen – for dessert. Usually, you have to supplement the afikomen with more matzah, but I was eating only the real thing. I also really loved preparing for the Seder. “

This year wasn’t the first time that Gila has done a Seder by herself.

I asked her what she finds challenging about doing it by herself.

“Beforehand is the hardest part. When people start asking me, what are you doing for Seder? That can be a hard question. It’s hard anticipating being alone, and worrying about how society views me. Other people’s reactions are the main problem for me, not actually doing the Seder. The first time I did it, my parents thought I was nuts, until I explained to them how the Seder actually went.

“For someone who has never done it, who has never enjoyed the fruits of their own labor at the Seder, it’s so gratifying to be really involved, and to not just be a guest. Even the shopping was enjoyable and meaningful. I was using my own hands to create the Seder!”

Gila has now done Seder by herself on 5 different occasions.

She’s very happy to still be a guest at other people’s tables, if that’s suitable for her and her hosts, but she told me something about the reality of being an older single at other people’s Seder that made a very profound impact on me:

“Even if you have a bad experience at a Seder, you need to take responsibility. You can’t just accept an invitation to someone because you feel you don’t have a better alternative. When I first decided to do Seder by myself, as an older single in my 40s, it’s because I had never made it myself, and I felt it was just time to do it. When I took that decision, it showed me that I really have a choice about how and where I do Seder, and that was liberating. In general, when you know you have a choice it also makes you more tolerant since you take responsibility for what you want to do, instead of blaming other people.”

I will share more of Gila’s tips on how to do a Seder for one below, but I didn’t just find her experience liberating for some of the singles out there, who maybe are sick of being guests around other people’s tables.

I also found it liberating for myself, because it underscored the point God had been trying to teach me that everyone has a choice.

If a person truly wants to experience a Seder, there is nothing stopping them.

I don’t need to relate to people as nebuchs¸ unfortunates, because they aren’t used to making a Seder, or don’t find it easy. It’s a mitzvah! It’s a privilege! It’s an obligation – their obligation to recount the Haggada and eat matzah and drink four cups of wine.

If they care about the mitzvah, they will find a way to pull it off.

(It’s a whole other story, but I have friends in Costa Rica who are going through a very tough time, financially. This year, they only had enough money to buy the minimal matzah and wine for Seder night, and they just ate vegetables the rest of the week. Talk about mesirut nefesh for the mitzvah! Amazing.)

And if they don’t really care about the mitzvah – then having them back year after year is just enabling them to keep ticking a box, and just keeping them stuck in that place of being a permanent, uninterested, entitled guest.

And I’m not going to do that, any more.

It’s not helping me, for sure, but Gila’s story also showed me that it’s also really not helping them. Or their kids.

So, if you’re young enough and healthy enough to change your kitchen over and cook for three days straight – do your own Seder. If you’re single, consider doing it alone, or consider inviting your other single friends and doing it together. If you have a family and you’re approaching your fifties without ever having done your own Seder, make a decision that next Pesach is the year you finally grow up, and take responsibility for yourself and your families.

Making Seder is hard work, for sure, but it’s a mitzvah, and every ounce of effort you put in is repaid, spiritually.

If you want some more guidance on what to actually do on Seder night, take a look at the Seder Guide on the Torah.org website. And HERE is where you’ll find a run-down of the customs and minhagim that Rabbi Berland follows on Seder night. Finally, I have discovered two excellent cookbooks for Pesach, which contain simple, pretty healthy food that is not a pain in the bottom to put together, but tastes pretty good. You can get A Taste of Pesach #1 by clicking the bold, and also check out A Taste of Pesach #2.

And now, let’s end with Gila’s dos and don’ts for how to do a Seder for one:

PERSONAL SEDER DOS:

  • Try to get excited about it.
  • Appreciate that you have a choice of how and where you do Seder, and that if you really want to do it in your own home, you can.
  • Run the Seder exactly how you want it to go, and include any segulot or customs you want.
  • Have realistic expectations.
  • Prepare for Seder properly – and enjoy preparing for it.

PERSONAL SEDER DON’TS:

  • Don’t do a Seder by yourself if you’re not in a good frame of mind, or if you feel isolated.
  • Don’t a Seder by yourself if you can’t be alone for a meal on Shabbat.
  • Don’t tell yourself you have no choice, except to be a guest at someone else’s table. You always have a choice to do the Seder yourself, if you really want to.
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Pesach in the Land of Money

Like Alice Through the Looking Glass, somehow a malfunction occurred in my Pesach outing plans, and I ended up tripping through the glass into the Land of Money*.

We wound up at this swanky, newly-built apartment complex overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, where we were told we could park on Level Minus 2. I nearly crashed into a concrete wall, because there was only Minus 1. Later on, we discovered that Minus 2 was carefully hidden behind a retractable Iron Curtain, policed with cameras that didn’t recognize our car as ‘belonging’.

I knew the feeling.

One of the residents of the Land of Money came down to greet us, as we were ushered into the expensive but sterile lobby, then over to the elevators with no buttons.

“Why are there no buttons?” I wanted to know.

“Some Arab got in here a few months ago from the parking, and started visiting all the floors and they caught him on camera,” came the explanation. “The residents all went mad, so the management changed the elevator and now it will only open on your own floor.”

“How does it know what floor your apartment is on?”

He flashed me the round blue plastic toggle on his keychain, as he pressed it to the screen reader outside the elevator.

Man, this is really a prison, I thought to myself.

We got up to the swanky five-room cell, hidden behind its ominous security door, and walked into an atmosphere so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

Not even the stunning view, or the massively-colorful artwork could take your mind off the oppressive, gloomy feeling of suppressed anger and resentment, that was swirling all over the place like a toxic cloud.

The sofa was oversized and pure white. It was covered in a cheap white blanket, and one of the inhabitants of the Land of Money sat uncomfortably perched on the edge of it. God forbid, that a speck should land on that purity and sully it! God forbid, that someone’s careless heels should leave a scuff-mark on the couch, or that it’s perfection should be creased or diminished in any way!

“Sit down, sit down!” they told me heartily. But I was too scared of the couch to want to comply. So, I stood awkwardly for a few minutes, admiring the view, then proffered the two boxes of fresh strawberries I’d brought as an offering to appease the gods of the Land of Money.

This started a panic.

I know they aren’t so fussed about kashrut, so they’re not worrying about bug infestation. So what? What is going on here, what?!

It took me a couple of minutes of deciphering worried glances and barked commands to sit down at the table to figure out the problem: Strawberries contain red juice – lots of it – and red juice stains. And the expensive designer chairs around the carefully upholstered glass dining table were first in the line of fire.

They had their hand-sewn, cheap grey covers to protect them – which presumably would be whipped off whenever all humans had left the premises, restoring them to their pristine appearance – but even so. Were those covers enough to defend against two boxes of strawberries in the hands of young children?

It took ten minutes of strict policing and worried hovering with wipees until the residents of the Land of Money could breathe out again.

In the meantime, I started to find the atmosphere totally choking and suffocating.

No-one asked me how I was doing – why would they? In the scale that the Land of Money uses to measure worth, I’m less than a cockroach. I have no big investments to boast about, no easy cash to flaunt, no designer clothes to swish around in.

Whatever money I have, I spend.

I’d just spent a small fortune having different residents from the Land of Money for Seder, where no expense was spared to try to make it a good evening for the (not religious) people attending.

They didn’t offer to help cover any of the expenses, natch, because they were ‘Stars’ in the Land of Money, and as I’ve mentioned, my net worth ranks me alongside the ‘animals’ that are expected to sacrifice themselves for the idols in that place.

“Let’s get out of here, and go to the icecream place down the road,” one of the kids suggested, and I jumped at the idea far too enthusiastically.

Freedom! Let’s get out of this poisonous cloud of choking gashmius ASAP!!!

Somehow, the button-less lift with its million electronic eyes knew to let us out at the lobby, and we bounded out of the elevator just as an expensively-dressed group of secular Americans were waiting to crowd back in.

They caught one whiff of my husband’s payot (side-curls) and their eyes immediately grew large in their faces, and almost fell out. You could hear what they were thinking:

What is something like this doing in our building?!?!

Strange to say, I had the same thought.

What are we doing here, in this awful, sterile, dead place where the money has killed every spiritual impulse, every natural kind tendency of the human heart, stone dead?

As soon as we got outside, we breathed easier again, the kids lightened up, and the conversation that had frozen into stilted rivulets of polite small talk up in the apartment started to gush forth with much more genuine warmth and interest.

“You have to get out of there, it’s killing you.”

That’s what I told the prisoner who I’d come to visit in the Land of Money.

“Yeah, it’s a gilded cage. But I’m stuck in it,” he told me back.

And we both knew that at least for now, he’s right.

I came home so thankful to God for so many things.

Thanks, God, that my armchair is 15 years old, but people can eat strawberries on it without anyone risking a heart attack. Thanks, God, that you made my business fail when it did, so I would put so much more of my effort into building relationships than building my bank balance. Thanks, God, that I’m not so obsessed with money that I’m totally close-fisted about sharing what I have. Thanks that I don’t spend all my time ‘complaining’ about how other people aren’t giving me value for money.

And most of all, God, thanks for getting me out of the poisonous, toxic atmosphere of the Land of Money, where people can’t talk to each other, and the only thing that matter is how it all looks.

The apartment looked stunning (underneath all the cheap covers….) but felt totally dead and deadening.

And not for the first time, I learnt that freedom is priceless, and that too much money truly is the worse curse in the world.

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  • The Land of Money appears in Rebbe Nachman’s Tale called ‘The Master of Prayer’. It’s a place where all the residents believe that making money is the only true purpose of life, and where the people with the most money are literally worshipped as ‘gods’ and ‘stars’.
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You get the husband you pray for

On the back of a few emails about the post on Marriage Guidance – Israel style, I just wanted to elaborate a little more on how to get a good husband:

Pray on him every single day.

Every single day, ask God to help your husband overcome his bad temper, his poor self-esteem, his confusion, his doubts, his bad behavior and warped ideas.

Because we all have these issues, even the very best of us, and a woman’s job is to help to fix her husband’s soul by praying on him (and herself and her family) as much as she can.

That is the secret ingredient, the special sauce, that can turn even the worst relationship between a husband and wife around.

Any marriage counsellor who is not telling a couple to get God involved in the process, can’t really help you long-term and is probably doing way more harm than good.

And any wife who is not willing to pray on her husband, is going to have plenty of challenges and heartache to deal with. (Like, more than you’d get if you were actually praying, because getting marriages to last the distance is hard work, even when you are talking to God a lot.)

We’re not talking about doing six hours a day here, or even six minutes. All it takes is a tiny bit of effort, a smidge of empathy about where all these issues the husband has is actually coming from, and a touch of emuna that God really can do anything, if we get Him involved.

Try this:

  • Buy a bumper bag of tealights, 50, or 100.
  • Light one every single day in the merit of your husband, and say a few words to God about what you’d like Him to work on, e.g. “Please help him stop being so angry, God. Please help him to like himself more. Please help him to stop worrying so much about money, and killing himself at work. Please help him to be nicer to me and the kids. Please help him to realise – all by himself – that when a man looks like he’s 8 months pregnant, no-one finds that attractive, and he needs to join a gym…” – Whatever comes to you.
  • At the end of the 50 days, take your journal and note down any improvements – because I guarantee you’ll see some.
  • Go buy another bumper bag of tealights.
  • Repeat steps 1-4 until you have the man of your dreams.

This may take some time, it’s not a ‘quick fix’, it’s true.

But if at the end of five years solid of doing this you don’t have a wonderful marriage, I’ll eat my hat.

We women, we wives, have so much power to transform, improve and rectify all the problems in our marriage. But that power is only to be found in our prayers, and if we’re not regularly talking to God, we simply can’t get to it.

And we can’t outsource the job of fixing the husband to anyone else, however much we really might want to.

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Deconstructing Aliyah

Off the back of the discussion that’s been taking place around the Deconstructing Geula post, I thought I’d write something deconstructing the whole idea of aliya.

This is such a fraught topic, and so many bad middot and other subconscious impulses come into play with this subject, which is why I’ve generally stayed away from it in my writing. But, after that atrocious book was published to great acclaim in the orthodox Jewish world, which was ‘anti aliya’, to the point of degrading it even as a God-given mitzvah, I think it’s time to look at this subject in some depth, and to deconstruct what’s going on with it.

The first, and really primary, place to start is this:

Does God want Jews to live in Eretz Yisrael, at this stage in time?

Because if the answer is ‘yes’, then there has to be an extremely good reason for not moving here, if you consider yourself to be a God-fearing Jew.

So, without any further ado, let’s dive in the deep end, and see if we can answer the two parts of the question:

  • Does God want Jews to live in Eretz Yisrael generally; and
  • Does God wants Jews to live in Eretz Yisrael now.

THE BIBLICAL MITZVAH TO DWELL IN THE LAND

The following comes from 110b in Ketubot (Artscroll Translation):

“A person can force all the members of his household to go up to Eretz Yisrael to live there, but he can force none of them to leave there.”

The footnote to this clear pronouncement says the following:

[According to Rashi] If a family is living in some country outside of Eretz Yisrael and the father or mother decides that the family should move to Eretz Yisrael, the entire household is coerced [by the Rabbinic Court] to accede to the wishes of the parent and to go and live in Eretz Yisrael….According to some Rishonim, there is a biblical mitzvah to settle Eretz Yisrael…..[o]ther Rishonim maintain that there is no positive commandment to settle Eretz Yisrael.

However, even those authorities agree that it is a worthy cause to live in Eretz Yisrael.

(Which is why they enacted the law that would enable someone to ‘force’ his family to move there, with him. Or her.)

By the way, the mitzvah of settling the land doesn’t depend on ‘the land’ being an easy place to live.

When Moshe’s 12 spies go to take a look at Israel, 10 of them can only see the negative points of the country.

It’s hard there, there’s giants. The land devours its inhabitants. The people are really rough and rude. It’s full of wife-beating Arabs and awful daycare centers. The bureaucracy’s a nightmare, it’s too hot, I can’t get a decent job and my wife will miss her parents too much….

What does Caleb, the spy who figured out that you make it in Israel by doing a lot of hitbodedut and praying at the tombs of holy people tell them, in reply?

We can do it, if God is with us, we’ll eat the Caananites for lunch! There’s no problem that God can’t solve! Israel is where we’re really going to discover if we have emuna, or not, where we’re really going to grow into believing that Ein Od Milvado, there is only Hashem!

Come on, guys, the last 40 years you’ve been giving all these Torah sermons about ‘what God requires from us’, and ‘living our emuna’, and having faith – now it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, and to really live it! So what, you’ll lose your social status?! So what, you don’t speak the language properly and no-one appreciates your PhD?! So what, you can’t even figure out how to ask for a stamp in the post office?! 

All that stuff is humbling, and we know a humble person is much closer to God. God can’t dwell with an arrogant person, we know that! This is your chance to really get humble, and then to get real and stop thinking you’re such a big tzaddik and success, and then to get closer to God. Whaddya say?

 

We know what the spies said: Thanks, but no thanks.

They had prestigious, well-paying positions outside of Israel. They had respect. They had ‘their’ seat in shul, they had their established set of friends, they knew where to get the best chicken. They had nothing against visiting Israel every year for Pesach – still cheaper and nicer than having to clean their own home and cook everything themselves – but that’s as far as it goes.

Was God happy about this?

Nope.

The spies got punished awfully for slandering the land, and putting their fellow Jews off from moving to Israel.

But, your kid is going to struggle in school! Your husband is going to miss out on his amazing Rav, his amazing chavruta! You have a nice bunch of friends here, in the desert! But, you don’t speak the language, you can’t get a good job there, you won’t be able to afford your own home if you move to Israel, the place is full of wife-beating, idol-worshipping Canaanites, the divorce rate there is 80%….

Everybody has the same fears, the same concerns. People can’t live on thin air, it’s true. But again, God often expects some mesirut nefesh, some self-sacrifice from people, in order to keep His mitzvahs.

If someone is interested in working on their soul dimension, then Israel will be appealing to them for a lot of reasons (and if they aren’t, it won’t be, also for a lot of reasons.)

Let’s explore that idea a bit more, tachlis.

ISRAEL IS THE LAND OF EMUNA

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov teaches that Israel is the place where you’re going to learn some real emuna. How? Because you’ll be surrounded by miracles and challenges every second of the day.

In Chutz L’Aretz, a person can sin and sin and sin again, and because spiritual matters are more hidden there, they don’t feel the effect of their sins until the end of their lives – usually when it’s way too late to change course and fix things.

There in the hospital, with a tube up their nose and a drip in their arm, they finally start to realize how much of their life they wasted, chasing after stuff, and holidays, and traif food, and non-kosher experiences, and money, and status, and their own bad middot, because God was out of the picture.

God can hide much easier in chul. You don’t keep Shabbat, you don’t keep kosher, you don’t pay your 10% to charity, you don’t pay any attention to what God really wants from you – you’ll just keep swallowing your Prozac, drinking your G&T and going on holiday, or shopping, or working like a dog to drown out any inner discomfort you feel as a result.

And God lets you.

That’s why being in galut is such an ordeal, spiritually such a test. Because it really can seem as though you can game the system, and live a good life even if you’re a bitter atheist with terrible character traits.

But in Israel, it’s not like that.

It says that you walk dalet amot, four amot, in Israel, and that atones for your sins. Do you know why? Because every dalet amot here, you’ll be faced with another rude person, another problem, another challenge, another issue, that has been 100% tailored by God to bring your bad middot to the fore, and to show you what you still have left to work on.

Really? You’re not so bothered about gashmius? Let’s see how you’re going to cope when every brand of kosher-for-Pesach mayonnaise in the country has kitniot in it. Let’s see how much you start craving all the brands in TX Maxx, let’s see how you cope with just one toilet between seven people, and no cleaning help.

And there’s more tests, too. Like, trying to find a school for your kid; and trying to deal with the wounded ego of your spouse, who used to be a ‘bigshot’ in shul, or at work, but is now scrabbling to hold it together as a relative ‘nothing’ in Israel; or dealing with the tremendous loneliness and boredom of being an Anglo in Israel on Shabbos, which used to be filled up with six hour long Shabbos lunches, and ‘kiddush clubs’ at shul (that went on to 1pm…) and yet more shiurim on how to keep super-machmir standards of kashrut. Etc.

And we didn’t even get into the tests involved with having rockets fired at you on a regular basis, or people trying to stab you just for being a Jew, or getting shot or run over as you wait for a bus.

All these things, all these difficulties, build a person’s emuna like nothing else.

Because if you don’t turn to God to deal with the difficulties in finding work, or finding a place to live, or the million and one other things that force you to get real in Israel very quickly, you can quickly sink without a trace.

That’s why Israel is the land of emuna – dafka, because it shows a person what they need to work on, and how far away they are from really having emuna, and really serving Hashem properly, 24/7.

So when people point to the hardships of living in Israel as a reason to not make aliya, they are kind of missing the point – if they’re really interested in the more spiritual dimension of life.

Which honestly, a lot of people really just aren’t. Even in the ‘orthodox’ world.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the halachic arguments underpinning the ‘anti’ aliya argument.

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TORAH-BASED ARGUMENTS FOR NOT MAKING ALIYA

This approach was basically set out by the late Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, z’tl, in his book V’Yoel Moshe.

Rav Teitelbaum wrote his book after going through the holocaust. He saw half a million of his Hungarian compatriots sold out by the Zionist government in Israel, who were offered the chance to buy the freedom and lives of the Hungarian Jews by the cash-strapped Nazis – and who turned it down.

The whole sordid tale is told in Ben Hecht’s excellent book, Perfidy, but the Satmar Rebbe was one of the brands snatched from the conflagration in Hungary, and he had personal experience of this most ugly face of secular ‘zionism’. The awful actions of the secular politicians in Israel before, during and after WW II almost certainly influenced the opinions he put forth in his book.

Remember, the Israeli authorities in the 1950s were irradiating the kids of Moroccan immigrants in the tent camps, and cutting off people’s payot, and selling Yemenite children to the highest bidder. They were yucky, ugly people in every sense of the word.

Many of our other leading orthodox leaders, within Israel and without, also recognized who they were really dealing with, and that the secular leadership in Israel was spiritually corrupt, and corrupting to a very high degree.

The Satmar Rebbe took this idea to an extreme in his book, where he puts forward the idea that the anti-Torah Zionists in Israel caused the holocaust to happen, at least indirectly, by their actions, and by ‘forcing the time’ for returning to the land. (We’ll look at what this ‘forcing the time’ is referring to, in a moment.)

First, there’s a partial translation of some of the Satmar Rebbe’s words in V’Yoel Moshe, HERE, which the following ideas are taken from. The Satmar Rebbe avers that:

  • The anti-Torah Zionist groups in Israel caused the holocaust by ‘informing’ on the Jews in Europe to the non-Jewish authorities, and making trouble for the Jews there, in order to turn up the heat and get these Jews to move to the fledgling State of Israel.
  • That these anti-Torah Zionist groups “violated the oath of hastening the end by claiming sovereignty and freedom before the time.”
  • That the secular Zionist groups performed several “cruel actions” before, during and after the war which also lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews.

  • “Furthermore, among those who have moved to Eretz Yisrael in these times, most of the immigrants from Arab countries were living peacefully and tranquilly in their countries, lacking nothing, until the establishment of the heretical kingdom in Israel. Through the establishment of that State they began to suffer hatred and persecution in their countries, and the Zionists themselves aided this through their wiles, so as to increase the persecution until they would be forced to emigrate to Eretz Yisrael, destitute and with nothing, and they glorified their saviors, but the truth was the opposite – that [the Zionists] had brought about all of the destruction in the first place. (Va-Yo’el Moshe 123)”

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THE THREE OATHS ‘PREVENTING’ ALIYA

The idea of the three oaths that prevent Jews from returning to Israel before God actually wills it comes from the Gemara (Ketubot 111a), where it brings a discussion between R’ Zeira, who wanted to make aliya to Israel from Bablyonia, and Rav Yehuda who said:

Whoever ascends from Babylonia to Eretz Yisrael transgresses a positive commandment, as it says: “They will be brought to Babylonia and they will be there until the day that I attend to them – when I shall bring them up and return them to this place.

Rav Zeira said that this verse is referring to the sacred utensils that were used in the Temple service, but that people are permitted to make aliya, still. Rav Yehuda disagrees, and says that the verse I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by gazelles or by hinds of the field etc means that the Jews are bound by an oath not to ascend to Eretz Yisrael until the Final Redemption.

Rav Zeira says that’s not what this verse means. Rather, he says it means that:

The Jewish people should not converge upon Eretz Yisrael in a wall of force, but that an individual is permitted to settle there, if he wants to.

Rav Yehuda again disagrees, so then R’ Zeira explains there are three oaths, as follows:

  • The Jewish people should not converge upon Israel as a wall of force;
  • Hashem adjured the Jewish people to not rebel against the nations of the world [to try and force their way back to living in Israel before the time God wanted that to happen]; and
  • Hashem also adjured the idolaters (i.e. the non-Jewish nations) not to subjugate and terrorise the Jews more than was required.

R’ Zeira explains that any case, an individual is never adjured to not make aliya to Eretz Yisrael.

This discussion in the Gemara is ‘sandwiched’ between the following statements:

BEFORE: Whoever dwells outside Eretz Yisrael, it’s as if he worships idols.

AFTER: The people dwelling within Eretz Yisrael are forgiven of sin.

This discussion is the halachic basis for the Satmar position, together with some other groups, for why it’s not a mitzvah to make aliya.

But you’ll notice, even in this discussion, it’s clear that the main ‘problem’ being discussed is for groups of Jews to ‘ascend’ all at once. There is no problem for individuals to make aliya, and as is clear from the surrounding text and discussion in the Gemara, the Sages considered it a very praiseworthy thing, to move to Israel.

ARE WE AT ‘THE END’ OR NOT?

The main argument revolves around a discussion of whether we are at the ‘the end’ of the galut, as determined by God, or not. If we’re at ‘the end’, then there is no problem at all with making Aliyah en masse.

If we aren’t at ‘the end’, then it’s good for individuals to make aliya, but still problematic for large groups to come on aliya.

Here’s a few suggested reasons for why the 3 oaths have been superseded:

  • The nations of the world actually gave permission for the State of Israel to be created, back in 1948.
  • The Gemara in Sanhedrin (98a) says that “when Eretz Yisrael gives forth fruit abundantly, it is a sure sign that the redemption is coming”. This was already happening in the early 1900s, in the time of Rav Avraham Kook.
  • Only very large groups coming in a short period of time violate the ‘oath’, it doesn’t apply to a slow trickle of Jews moving here.
  • The Ari’s student, R’ Chaim Vital, said that the oath only applied for 1,000 years.
  • The Vilna Gaon states that the oath applied to rebuilding the Temple, not to resettling the land.

And then, there’s all the evidence we see with our own eyes today, and things that we feel with our own hearts, that tells us whether we are at ‘the end’ or not.

DON’T CONFUSE ‘THE STATE OF ISRAEL’ WITH ERETZ YISRAEL

Another important point to make here is that the State of Israel should not confused, or conflated, with Eretz Yisrael.

When we talk about moving to Israel, we’re not talking about the State. We’re talking about moving to the land that God gave to the Jews more than 3,000 years ago.

Sooner or later, the secular ‘State’ will fall away – as Rav Kook describes it, as the ‘peel’ around the fruit’.

SUMMING UP WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ALIYA, AND RELIGIOUS JEWS IN CHUL

This is a long post, I know (but still probably not doing real justice to the subject….) But let’s try to sum it up, and bring all this information together into something practical and easy-to-digest.

  • If you are a God-fearing Jew, and keeping mitzvahs is important to you, then moving to Israel is a big mitzvah for an individual.

Not one of the Rishonim or Achronim commentators disagrees with this statement.

  • If you want to come to Israel as part of a very large group of people moving here ‘all at once’, there is a Torah view that this is prohibited, as long as we haven’t yet reached ‘The End’.
  • If we’ve reached ‘The End’, the three oaths don’t apply anymore anyway.
  • There’s lots of things that suggest we are now in the stage of ‘the end of days’ – not least, all the pronouncements by the nations’ leading rabbis that we’ve reached ‘the End’.

That’s a basic sum-up of the halachah.

Now, I just want to spend a little bit of time, finally, to explore why more orthodox Jews aren’t moving to Israel.

GETTING REAL

There are three main reasons why more orthodox Jews aren’t coming to Israel:

  • They are scared to come out of the comfort zone.
  • They really do want to come, but God isn’t let them.
  • They actually don’t care so much about keeping mitzvahs, getting closer to God, or working on their emuna.

I won’t belabor this segment, as this is where things can get very sticky. Each person knows what’s really in their heart.

There are people who really do want to come, but are stuck outside for a whole bunch of reasons that really are out of their control. For these people, they are learning emuna and humility by being kept away from Israel.

Then, there are others who really don’t want to come at all, and are just looking for excuses to justify their own spiritual shortcomings – at Israel’s expense.

Then, there’s the third group, who would like to come in theory, and know that it’s good to be here, but are too scared that they won’t have the lifestyle, the money, the connections, the big house, or the career they currently have now, if they leave.

But if we truly have reached ‘The End’, then God will find a way to coax everyone who really can, to make aliya, and He will open the gates to the Holy land, one way or another.

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Jewish life in Israel vs Jewish life in Chutz L’Aretz

There’s been quite a bit of discussion on the Deconstructing Geula post, which I put together to try to explore what happens practically, the day after Moshiach actually shows up, and how different the experience is obviously going to be, depending on where we actually live at that point in time, and how much emuna we really do have.

I thought it would be useful to bring the discussion I’ve been having with Devorah, one of the commentators, here, as its own post. I’m working on a post which will look at the halachic basis for staying out of Israel, in the time before Moshiach comes – because there is one, as set out by the late Satmar Rebbe, R’ Yoel Teitelbaum – but this is a useful subset of the discussion:

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Devorah says

March 14, 2019 at 15:30

Rivka, Rambam represents just one opinion. There are different opinions. There’s another opinion that says that the Divine revelation at the time of geula will be like har Sinai, the yetzer hara, sicknesses, and death will disappear, the miracles will be bigger than in the Exodus, all forms of negativity will disappear.

Rivka Levy says

March 17, 2019 at 13:18

Thanks for the comment, Devorah.

By the time the Israelites got to Har Sinai, they’d already lost 4/5 in the plague of darkness, had to leave their homes in Egypt, and experienced 10 plagues and enormous fear and upheaval. So, it seems to me that what you’re describing is what comes AFTER what I’m describing precedes it. We need to have emuna to get to geula, and there are no short-cuts to acquiring it.

Devorah says

March 18, 2019 at 04:56

I know Rivka but not in the final Geulah.

“Unlike the Egyptian Exodus, when many Jews did not merit to leave Egypt, with regards to the future redemption we are assured that no Jew will be left behind—including the Ten Lost Tribes.” Source: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1122197/jewish/The-Future-Apportionment-of-Israel.htm

Also, the Jewish people will not have to leave galut in haste because unlike in the Geulah from Egypt when the Jews still had some measure of evil in them, in the final Geulah the evil inclination in them will already been annulled. This is the kabbalistic explanation I remember from the book of Tanya and from the moshiach and Geulah online forum that still existed a few years ago. If you’re still scared, you can change ur emotions and invoke miracles in your life by practicing gratefulness. Kol tuv

Rivka Levy says

March 18, 2019 at 12:23

Devorah, do you live in Israel, or in Chul?

Rivka Levy says

March 18, 2019 at 12:54

Thanks for the link – I had a look, and I can see that what you quoted is the opinion of the author, Rav Silberberg, but he didn’t include any sources or references for that opinion. Can you point me in the direction of any sources?

At the same time, I found this on the Chabad website talking about the time immediately before Moshiach comes, here: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/100900/jewish/The-Time-Before-Mashiach.htm

Which has copious sources from the Gemara, and explains that the situation will be very scary before the Messianic Era actually kicks off (see below).

Which brings us back to the original point of whether we can get to the Messianic Era without the ‘birthpangs’ and suffering that is so amply described, in so many of our sources, as being part and parcel of the run up to the Messianic Era.

Again, if you have a Torah source you can reference to support your point of view, I’d be very interested in seeing it.
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III. Ikvot Meshicha: The Time Immediately Before Mashiach

The time appointed by G‑d for the Messianic redemption is a closely guarded secret.1 Nonetheless, we are offered many hints to recognize its proximity: when certain conditions come about, await the imminent coming of Mashiach.

Most of these conditions are quite disturbing, clearly displaying a situation of the very “bottom of the pit.”2 One major source describes the world-condition in those days as follows: increase in insolence and impudence; oppressing inflation; unbridled irresponsibility on the part of authorities; centers of learning will turn into bawdy houses; wars; many destitutes begging, with none to pity them; wisdom shall be putrid; the pious shall be despised; truth will be abandoned; the young will insult the old; family-breakup with mutual recriminations; impudent leadership.3

Other sources add: lack of scholars; succession of troubles and evil decrees; famines; mutual denunciations; epidemics of terrible diseases; poverty and scarcity; cursing and blaspheming; international confrontations nations provoking and fighting each other.4 In short, it will be a time of suffering that will make it look as if G‑d were asleep. These are the birthpangs of Mashiach, bearable only in anticipation of the bliss that follows them.

“When you see a generation ever dwindling, hope for him… when you see a generation overwhelmed by many troubles as by a river, await him.”5 “When you see nations fighting each other, look toward the feet of Mashiach.”6

Little wonder that some sages expressed apprehensions about those days in terms of, “Let [Mashiach] come, but let me not see him.”7

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I guess those scared Sages should also go and work on their gratitude….

Rachel in NY says

March 18, 2019 at 19:05

We are THERE, Rivka. We have already experienced everything you listed in your above comment. No reason to assume it has to get worse!

Rivka Levy says

March 19, 2019 at 09:42

It’s definitely tough now, you’re right.

But I’d like to see a Torah source for this part of Devorah’s comment:

“Also, the Jewish people will not have to leave galut in haste because unlike in the Geulah from Egypt when the Jews still had some measure of evil in them, in the final Geulah the evil inclination in them will already been annuled.”

I still have an evil inclination, and so do a whole bunch of the people who are living in Galut, and also here in Israel. What needs to happen, before that evil inclination gets ‘annulled’? I’d like to see a Torah source for that, because in my experience, evil inclinations get ‘annulled’ through suffering. That’s the catalyst for real teshuva. But I’m very happy to see a Torah source that provides some other route.

Devorah says

April 2, 2019 at 14:52

Rivka the Torah source of ” not leave in haste” is in the book Tanya and see also point 2 here: http://ruchoshelmashiach.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-will-redeem-you-in-end-like-beginning.html?m=1

I think it’s based on yeshayahu 52:12
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15983#showrashi=true

I am sorry to tell you though that I also read somewhere in the meantime ( sorry I lost the link) that it all depends on us. If I remember well. You can Google these things. I may find more when I will have more time to look. Sorry, I am not a rabbi ..

Re the evil inclination annulled. how? : I think thru the birthpangs of Jewish history, and of mashiach. Could also in the end happen suddenly like at har Sinai. It says it will be like that. Hashem will reveal himself to the whole world with greater revelation than at har Sinai and suddenly the evil inclination will be annulled. Darkness can’t exist in the presence of light

Re whether we can get to the Messianic Era without the ‘birthpangs’ and suffering that is so amply described: of course. Darkness can’t exist in the presence of light. Talmud says in order to survive in the times of the birthpangs of mashiach one needs to occupy himself with Torah and gemilut hassadim.

Also, gratefulness evokes miracles.

I too believe we have already suffered enough and we’re already there.

Question to you now after been reading ur other site: could it be that all these leftists that are anti Torah and wanna make peace with the enemies suffer from c-ptsd (toxic shame, self hatred etc) ??

Rivka Levy says

April 3, 2019 at 09:44

Hi Devorah, I’m grateful for you taking the time to share sources.

I will BH write a longer post on this, as what you’re referring to is also part of why Satmar talks about the 4 oaths, restraining Am Yisrael from ‘ascending to Eretz Yisrael as a wall’.

From the first link, the post ends with this:

“And so it is with the service of each and every individual – there is no time to say, ‘I’ll change, when I have the time’, because these could be the very last moments of galus, and after these will come ‘the years about which you say ‘I have no desire for them” – ‘night like day will shine’, the complete redemption by means of Mashiach. ”

That seems to suggest we can’t expect Moshiach to ‘change’ things for us – NOW is the time we need to be doing the work on taking down the yetzer, etc, and fulfilling the mitzvah of making aliya (or at least, WANTING to make aliya).

The 4/5 died because they didn’t want to move out of their comfort zone. It could be that when the Tanya teaches the geula will come ‘comfortably’ and not in haste, that means that the Jewish people had 70 years to get their act together and move to Israel at a time when it was most convenient for them, and they could still come with their assets, and not just some old matza to eat…

There’s a lot of clarification required, and I think it requires a proper blog post, not just a 2 minute response on a comment. So, BH when I have some time I will put that together, with as many sources as I can find.

Re: crazy lefties – they for sure have C-PTSD! That doesn’t excuse them (or any other of the angry, aggressive, narrow-minded and abusive people out there) – but it does explain how they got like that, and it also points to how they can get ‘fixed’ somehow.

Devorah says

April 3, 2019 at 12:16

Rivka, Remember that someone who suffers from c-ptsd could also have the fawn response, not just the fight response. I think most inhabitants of Tel Aviv fawn. It’s really bad. How do they react whenever they see the rockets flying over TLV? “Oh poor Palestinians, you are starving again. It’s about time that our gov treats you more like family” ??

Devorah says

April 3, 2019 at 21:20

And let’s remember, Israel’s enemies also have c-ptsd.

Before the elections, some questions for meditation:

Who should we vote for? Which politician doesn’t have or has the least c-ptsd ?
What if a Torah observant politician has c-ptsd but a non Torah observant politician doesn’t have it? Who should we rather vote for?

Rivka Levy says

April 4, 2019 at 10:00

“The hearts of the kings are in Hashem’s hands” – who we vote for doesn’t matter so much (although clearly much better to vote for someone with daas Torah behind them, because even if we think we know who has C-PTSD and who doesn’t, what do we really know?)

If WE make the teshuva required in our dalet amot, our leaders will have siyatta dishmeya and things will work out, even if they are lunatics. And vice versa.

Devorah says

April 4, 2019 at 18:02

“If WE make the teshuva required ”

Currently according to statistics only 20% of Israelis keep Shabbat.

We need a non-lunatic spiritual as well as political leader.

No one wants to follow a lunatic even if he has daas Torah (remember for instance that NY born rabbi politician who got thrown out of the gov and then shot) and Torah requires one to be healthy!!

Rivka Levy says

April 6, 2019 at 22:02

If someone truly has daas Torah, they won’t be a lunatic. Just because someone has the title of ‘rabbi’, doesn’t mean they have daas Torah.

Also daas Torah is not generally a result of an individual effort, it’s the result of many yireh shemayim people coming together to come up with opinions that reflect genuine daas Torah – that’s why the Sanhedrin had 70 members, that’s why a Beit Din has 3 members. You can’t just have one person calling the shots in true Yiddishkeit.

Daas Torah is a consensus view.

Also, the teshuva required is not just in Israel. I don’t know where you got that stat from about Shabbat – can you please give a source? But I can tell you 100% for sure, that there are far more mitzvahs happening in Israel, and far more people with a true connection to Hashem in Israel.

Doesn’t mean that there aren’t mitzvahs occurring in Chul too, or that there aren’t people with a connection to Hashem there, too, because obviously there are. But our sources say clearly that Israel is the land of emuna. You feel Hashem’s guidance here 24/7, that’s part of why it’s sometimes not easy to live here, you can feel the spiritual judgments in the air, and they can drive you bonkers – or make you make teshuva.

Devorah says

April 7, 2019 at 22:28

Rivka, So who is this person in Israel’s politics that presently has daas haTorah acc to you?

Re the stat: “11% simply as religious, and 9% as ultra-Orthodox. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, the percentage of ultra-Orthodox is slightly higher.”

Source:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/latest-population-statistics-for-israel

80% of Israelis believe in G-d (stat of 2012)

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/1.5175991

Rivka Levy says

April 8, 2019 at 10:37

Daas Torah is collective, it’s not about an individual.

There is no one person in Israeli politics with “Daas Torah”, but there are political parties who clearly state that they don’t act before first consulting ‘Daas Torah’ – i.e. the collective wisdom of yirat-shemayim rabbis who are extremely learned in the finer points of halacha, and who are genuinely striving to try to give God what He wants.

Politics is dirty, there’s no way around it, but at least those types of parties have an additional ‘check’ on their negative impulses.

Thanks for giving the source for the stats – there’s a lot of manipulation of these things going on in the press in Israel, as they are trying to ‘force through’ anti-Shabbat legislation by claiming the majority don’t want it. Here’s what I found about the state of shabbos observance, from two years ago:

Towards the 69th Independence Day of the State of Israel, the Central Bureau of Statistics published a report according to which the population of Israel is approximately 8,680 million. 9% stated that they are ultra-Orthodox, 11% religious, 12% traditional religious, 24% traditional and not so Religious, “44% are not religious and secular.

I.e. 56% of the country keep Shabbat, in some form or other. Again, the reason that you’re seeing all those headlines screaming ‘only 20% are frum!!!!’ is because there’s a lot of political manipulation going on in this country, and huge agendas all over the place. Most of Israel keeps shabbat, but the 44% that doesn’t is often extremely vocal and ‘anti’ religion. It’s v polarised. But that 44% are in charge of the media, the courts and (most of…)the political parties.

Devorah says

Can you post the URL of the article about the stat?
Besides traditional doesn’t mean keeps Shabbat. It usually means they go to shul on rosh hashana and Yom Kippur, they do the pesach seder, brit mila and they install a mezuza.

The entire Middle East is one crazy region. The Arabs beat their wives, the Israelis beat their children, kick their brothers out of their homes and at least half of them divorce but, they wanna make ‘peace’ with the terrorists. Insane!

Rivka Levy says

April 9, 2019 at 09:09

The stat comes from here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Israel

“It usually means they go to shul on rosh hashana and Yom Kippur, they do the pesach seder, brit mila and they install a mezuza.” –

This is a chutz l’aretz definition of ‘traditional’. If you look at the link above, you’ll see that:

“85% [of Jews in Israel] participate in a Passover seder.”

“98% of Israel Jews Perform ‘Brit Milah’ Circumcision” – See here: https://hamodia.com/2017/12/27/poll-98-young-israeli-parents-held-bris-children/

Mezuzahs are ubiquitous in Israel – there is hardly a doorpost without them, and even self-defined ‘secular’ Jews put up mezuzahs – and also, erect sukkahs on Succot.

All this means that a ‘traditional’ Jew in Chul would probably self-define as a ‘secular’ Jew here. In Israel, traditional means the Shabbat is observed in some notable way – people will eat the Friday night meal, they will go to shul, they will not drive, minimum.

In regard to your comments about ‘half of Israelis beating up their children’ – 1) where on earth did you get that from? 2) it’s total lashon hara about Jews in Israel to say that – are you saying that wife-beating and kid-beating doesn’t happen in Jewish communities outside of Israel, or that Israel is somehow ‘worse’ than other places?

On what basis? This comes from a report on domestic abuse in the US Jewish community: (https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/265934/safe-at-home-2)

“In Jewish families, domestic abuse occurs at about the same rate as in the general population (15-25 percent), among all socioeconomic levels and denominations including the unaffiliated, reports the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse.”

I know it’s more comfortable to keep demonizing Israel, as that helps to justify why Jews live in Chul. I get that, I understand it. No-one is pretending Israel is perfect, anything but. But the discussion boils back down to ‘what does God want from me, and where does He want the Jewish people to live?’

The answer to the second part of that question is obvious, but it’s qualified – and sometimes superseded – by each person’s individual path in life.

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Rockets in Kfar Saba

This morning, there were rockets from Gaza in Kfar Saba.

Are we supposed to believe this is another ‘mistake’? That Ahmed tripped over that darned carpet again, and fell against the ‘launch’ button?

Rav Berland was talking about rockets hitting every part of the country 4 months ago, and telling us the decree is serious and imminent. Which other Rav was trying to pull 50,000 Jews together in prayer at that point in time? Or pointing out that all the politicians in the world, all the ‘iron dome’ systems in the world simply aren’t going to help us, this time around?

We are down to the wire.

The threat is real, and growing stronger by the day.

Today, there were rockets in Kfar Saba.

And the Rav has told us clearly: Only prayer, only tehillim, can stop these rockets.

There is going to be another prayer gathering on Monday, April 8th, in Hevron. It’s hugely important that as many of us as possible get there, and throw our ‘prayer power’ behind the Rav’s effort to sweeten this decree.

Because the next rocket from Gaza could be coming through our roof, God forbid.

What if we don’t live in Israel?

Do we still have to worry, do we still have to care about all this stuff?

It’s a post for another time, but it comes back to that whole idea that we can’t run away from God, and His plan for us. Jews can certainly dodge rockets from Gaza by staying in chul.

But that doesn’t mean they’ll get the ‘easy life’ – because there is no such thing.

We can’t run away from God, even if we don’t live in Israel.

We won’t get a rocket through the roof (probably….I was talking to someone yesterday who is convinced civil war is around the corner in the US and the UK…), but we’ll get some other wake-up call.

There’s so much heartache and suffering going on behind closed doors all over the world.

So many of us are trying to stay in the comfort zone, even though it’s literally killing us, and preventing us from being the people, the Jews, God designed us to be.

And God doesn’t want us to do that anymore, as it’s holding up geula.

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There is no running away from God

In the old days, I used to make plans to do a long hitbodedut every single day of a 3-day Purim heading into Shabbat – and sometimes, they even used to come off.

But not, it seems, these days.

I’ve actually been struggling with a lack of motivation since Rosh Hashana, when I deleted Emunaroma to avoid getting pulled into any more ‘machloket’ with pretend-perfect crazy people.

And for three months, I did nothing much, because I didn’t want to have any more machloket in my life, and whatever I write, it always seems to end up there, somehow or other.

So then, back in December, I felt God wanted me back online, and with a heavy heart, I agreed.

Because I really don’t want any more machloket in my life!!! I just want an ‘easy’ life now, thanks very much, Hashem.

For months, I’ve been avoiding getting into anything too controversial again, as much as possible (although in our PC world, full of snowflakes just waiting to get offended so they can take out all their inner turmoil on you, that’s really much easier said than done.)

But I’ve been trying.

Now, you’d think that making a resolute effort to pursue the ‘easy’ life would be making me far more relaxed, chilled out, and overall happy-feeling. Believe me, I also thought that would happen.

But, man, was I wrong.

Instead of being more chilled out, laid back, exercising more, using all my energy to whip up healthy cakes, and go to the gym, and to spotlessly clean the house and iron my husband’s shirts (poor man…), I’ve actually been struggling to wake up most mornings, because what’s the point? My kids are big enough to get off to school without me, no-one needs a sandwich made, or a pair of sneakers found, so what’s the point?

 Sure, I’ve still been doing stuff – lots of stuff, even – but nothing really has been exciting me too much, or grabbing me. Why? Because while it’s kinda meaningful, it’s also kinda bland. And bland is not enough to have me jumping out of bed in the morning.

But ‘interesting’ stuff is always inherently risky, in any number of different ways. It can draw people against you, it can draw you into disputes and patterns of thinking that are very unhealthy and destructive. It can lead to a lot of stress and complication….

So, I’ve been caught on the horns of a furious dilemma.

But today, Purim day, I realized something profound: I’m here to serve God, for the good, and also for the bad. I’m not here to have an easy life. And pursuing that ‘easy’ life is actually making my life anything but easy.

Externally, it’s relatively peaceful and tranquil, Baruch Hashem. Internally, I’m fighting a raging tempest that wakes me up 4 times a night, and gives me no rest. I’m falling apart physically. I can’t ignore God’s prompts anymore.

This is so similar to what happened to me before we moved to Israel. The risks associated with moving were so huge – in London, we both had good jobs, a nice house, a community, family, the language etc etc. It was far too scary to even contemplate aliya.

But then, God sent me a bunch of inexplicable panic attacks, and a series of bad nightmares about getting stuck in London during a terrorist attack (this was months before the 7/7 terror attack actually occurred, which killed 52 people in London) – and after the third time, I told my husband we have to do it, we have to move to Israel.

Because God was giving me no peace, and my ‘easy life’ was becoming a living nightmare.

And it’s happening again.

That’s what I realized, this Purim.

There is no running away from God.

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Healthy role models for Jewish women

One of the things I keep hearing from the people trying to force orthodox publications to publish pictures of women is that our girls ‘need to have more role models’.

On the face of it, that sounds like a reasonable argument, a reasonable wish. But as with so much of what passes as ‘intellectual discussion’, as soon as you start to explore it in any depth, it doesn’t stand up.

The elephant in the room is that:

The first, and most impactful role model in a girl’s life is her own mother.

If that mother is caring, compassionate, forgiving, emotionally-balanced, working on her own bad middot and honest that she’s not a ‘perfect being’, it’s hard to believe that a Jewish girl would really need to be seeing 2-D pictures of frum ‘superwomen’ in an orthodox publication, to turn out OK.

And there are other ‘real life’ role models for our girls, too. Every grandma, sister, cousin and aunt is also a ‘role model’.

Every female friend they have is a ‘role model’.

Every female teacher they come into contact with at school is a ‘role model’.

Ditto every rabbanit, every person they see and stand next to in shul, and even the check-out girl working at the local supermarket.

All these real-life women and girls are role-models in the deepest sense of the word – both for good and for bad.

And even those ‘bad’ role-models can be very helpful, because my girls have learned so much about how NOT to behave, and how NOT to parent, and how NOT to teach, by observing these ‘bad’ role models with their bunch of bad middot.

So, the idea that my kid desperately needs to see a 2D picture of some woman doing her best to look ‘glamorous’, or ‘wise’, or ‘role-model-ly’ just doesn’t fly, in real life.

All these people pushing that line – do you really expect me to believe your kids don’t have Whats App? That they aren’t bombarded with images of a million fake ‘friends’ on Facebook 24 hours a day? That they aren’t spending so much of their time ogling another frum female fashion victim on Instagram?

Really?

Our girls, our teens, will only ‘lack’ the sort of female role models they need if the women in their immediate environment aren’t caring, and aren’t compassionate, and aren’t forgiving, and aren’t emotionally-balanced, and aren’t working on their bad middot, and aren’t being honest about their own flaws and hang-ups.

For example, if a girl (or any kid…) grows up in a home where the mother is ‘angry’, and continually raging about all the ‘bad things’ that ‘everyone else’ is doing to her, and is constantly trying to suck-up everyone else’s attention and kudos, and is living life as a resentful, emotionally-unstable ‘permanent victim’ where they can’t see anyone else in the picture – then that kid will grow up with a lot of emotional difficulties and relationship issues.

And no amount of 2D pictures of frum ‘superwomen’ in orthodox publications is going to change that.

At its root, it seems to me that all this ‘ortho-fem’ stuff is really one big, massive complaint against Hashem, and how Hashem is choosing to run His world.

God made us a man, or a woman. God put rules in place that would dictate what is, and isn’t appropriate and halachically-acceptable for us to do.

Like it or not, a woman’s main role in the world is to focus on raising emotionally-healthy children, and helping her husband to fix up his bad middot.

If you can do that and still have your big, shiny career and 15 PhD diplomas on the wall, go right ahead.

Personally, I couldn’t.

Personally, I saw that I had to choose between making sure I was present for my kids, and really ‘present’ in my home, and being the flesh-and-blood role model they actually needed, OR continuing to have my ‘great’ career and making a big external splash in the world.

When I was that ‘successful’ career woman, I had such bad middot, and I was so angry and stressed all the time. My kids suffered so much from me trying to be that frum superwoman (with a cleaner, and a full-time nannie, who buys most of Shabbos in from the caterers) that the ortho-fems keep pointing to as ‘the ideal’.

Real achievements aren’t external. And real role models for our daughters can’t be found on Instagram, or in 2D pictures in frum publications.

Our kids need emotionally-healthy mothers, not more glossy pictures.

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The first feminist in Israel

After I wrote this post, some thoughtful person tried to educate me via email about something she called ‘toxic masculinity’. Here’s how she described it:

“[W]hat feminism opposes is something called “toxic masculinity.” Toxic masculinity is basically someone with the middos or Eisav–they pursue power, hold brute force above kindness, look after their own interests instead of others, don’t care about justice, care mostly about their own taavos and material interests. They only express motions like rage and disdain, not tenderness or compassion.

“Healthy masculinity is basically someone who has “good Jewish middos”: they have self-control, pursue justice, hold spiritual (Torah) and emotional goals above material ones, look after other people, and don’t misuse power.”

Sadly, I must be an incorrigible barbarian because when I read that, I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my chair.

In my house, we all know who has got issues with so-called ‘toxic masculinity’ – and it ain’t the man! Sure, Eisav had bad middot – he was the root of evil in the world, after all. But he didn’t have bad middot just because he was a man. If you look through Tanach, there are plenty of examples of murderous, idol-worshipping women with awful middot, too.

If you crack open the book of Kings (and the book of Chronicles), you’ll find the story of the first ‘feminists’ in Tanach, (i.e. ladies who put their own ‘rights’ and own ideas about ‘religious freedom’ ahead of Torah obligations and rules).

Israel’s first ‘feminists’

First up, is Queen Jezebel, who so thoroughly ruled over her husband, King Achav (Ahab) of Israel, that she managed to induce him to build a temple to her new Baal idol, and also got his permission to kill hundreds (and maybe even thousands) of Hashem’s true prophets.

The prophet Ovadya was a steward in the King’s palace, and he managed to hide the last 100 true prophets away from Jezebel’s murderous hands in two caves.[1]

You can just imagine how the conversations in that household used to go, can’t you?

Jezebel: Achvee, all these rabbis are bothering me. Every time I want to sacrifice a child to Moloch, or burn some incense to the Baal[2], they tell me I can’t do it, it’s against halacha.

King Achav: Jezebel, my love, I can’t believe these ignorant people are discriminating against your wish to worship in the way you choose! In the name of open-minded ‘religious freedom’, I give you permission to hunt down every last one of those antiquated men with beards, and to kill them as brutally as you wish!

Jezebel: Achvee, it’s so wonderful that I married such a tolerant, non-discriminating person like you! I’m going to write a Facebook post about it.

So anyway, Jezebel clearly wore the pants in that particular household[3], and man, did she abuse her position.

As well as murdering hundreds and thousands of God-fearing people in cold blood (all in the name of ‘religious tolerance’, natch), she was also instrumental in causing the Ten Tribes to fall so deeply into idol worship, they never recovered and were permanently exiled from their land.

Again, you can imagine how that was done, can’t you?

Jezebel: Achvee, I’m not worshipping in that orthodox Temple anymore. People keep looking at me funny when I want to read from the Torah, and I keep getting comments that wearing a pant-suit to shul isn’t respectful. That’s so disrespectful of me, and my feminine power! Achvee, build me somewhere I can go and be comfortable on Rosh Hashana, and where we can sit together, and where I can also give drashas, and share the wisdom of my forefathers!

King Achav: Yes, my sweet! Let’s reform this antiquated religion of ours! It’s not suitable for modern times, for modern women like yourself. And I’m also sick of that bearded fruitcake Elijah threatening me with God’s wrath every time I break out the cheeseburgers. And he was also pretty unhappy that I married you in the first place in that civil ceremony. These people belong in the dark ages! What shall we call this new Temple of ours? Temple of the ‘Baal’?[4]

Jezebel: I prefer ‘Temple of the Isha’.

So anyway, Jezebel was a real power-house.

She managed to get a bunch of idolatrous temples built up all over Samaria and the Kingdom of Israel, and to pull millions of Jews away from believing in God, and His Torah, and His tzaddikim (the ones she hadn’t just murdered in cold blood.)

But that still wasn’t enough for her. That pesky kingdom of Judah, to the south, was still worshipping the One True God in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the people there simply weren’t interested in having ‘Welcoming the Baal’ ceremonies in the Women’s Courtyard every month. So one day, Jezebel had an idea.

Jezebel: Achvee, let’s create an organization that will promote women’s rights, and minority rights, and Baal worshippers’ rights, and get those pesky orthodox rabbis and their stupid religion out the way. All their talk of serving Hashem is just stopping people from living in harmony, and coming together. It’s so much easier to serve the Baal! He lets you marry whoever you want, eat whatever you want, do whatever you want, and you can even spend Yom Kippur sunbathing on the beach in Tel Aviv!

We need to re-educate those dumb, backwards people in Jerusalem, and get them to stop shoving their old, outdated ‘Torah’ down everyone else’s throats.

So, King Achav called together his accountants and lawyers, and together they created The New Jerusalem Foundation, which would channel millions of dollars to every subversive idol worshipper they could find in the Kingdom of Judah.

And their work bore poisonous fruit very quickly!

Within a decade or two, after constant sniping from the feminists on Facebook, even the otherwise righteous Judean King, King Jehoshaphat decided that in the name of achdut and tolerance (and to stop all the carping), he should marry his son, Crown Prince Jehoram, to Princess Ataliah, the daughter of Jezebel and Achav.

Like her mother before her, Ataliah was a hard-core feminist, and a worshipper of the Baal[5]. The first thing she did was encourage her husband to murder all his siblings after he ascended the throne of Judah, so he wouldn’t have any competition. Jehoram, King of Judah, initially wasn’t so sure, but Ataliah managed to persuade him[6].

Ataliah: Jehoree, what’s the big deal?! Don’t tell me you really buy into all that 10 commandments stuff about ‘Don’t murder!’ That’s so pre-historic of you! All that stuff was just made up by rabbis to keep open-minded Baal-worshippers like us under their thumb! Do you know how many people I know, who left Yiddishkeit, because they weren’t allowed to sacrifice their child for the Moloch? We need to open things up here, and tolerate the different streams of Judaism. Baal Judaism and Moloch Judaism is just as valid as ‘orthodox’ Judaism![7] And where I come from, everyone is murdering their siblings to keep hold of their throne. It’s real politik, the way the world really works! Stop being such a doss!

Jehoram, King of Judah didn’t want to be thought of as backwards or as discriminating against his wife’s more modern beliefs – and he was also a little concerned about losing his revenue stream, if one of his siblings made a grab for the throne – so he acquiesced, and had all his brothers murdered[8] in the name of ‘freedom OF, and freedom FROM religion’.

Fast-forward 20 years, and things were going downhill for both kingdoms.

Both countries were being continually harassed and threatened by external enemies from both the North and the South. Achav was dead, his idol-worshipping son Jehoram, King of Israel, had just been murdered by the Israeli General, Jehu, who then also went after Jezebel.

Jezebel heard him coming inside the palace, and her last recorded act (which she live streamed on her i-Phone) was to apply mascara to her eyes, and fix her hairdo[9], before being pushed out of a window at the royal palace.

Forget about praying, or making teshuva a moment before she died, that stuff wasn’t for a modern woman like her.

(After viewing the footage, feminists in Jerusalem were horrified by this senseless violence against one of their own, and organized a vigil in her memory in Tel Aviv, which was attended by 20,000 prominent idolworshippers.  Channel 2 also covered the story, and blamed her death on – who else? – the rabbis).

The idol-worshipping Jehoram, King of Judah had died from an incurably painful intestinal disease, and his son, the anti-Torah[10], idol-worshipping Ahaziah, had made the mistake of going to visit his cousin, the King of Israel, just as Jehu was killing the whole royal family, so he was also murdered.

When the Queen Mother Ataliah heard this, feminist that she was, what did she decide to do? She decided it was time for the Kingdom of Judah to have its first female prime minister – because anything men can do, women can do better!

So, she declared herself the ruler, then she gave orders for every single male inline to the throne (including her own children and grandchildren) to be poisoned to death.[11]

Luckily for the House of David, Ataliah’s daughter, Jehosheba, was sick to the back teeth of all the Baal worship and feminist clap-trap she’d grown up with. She’d become a sincere baal teshuva, and married the Kohen Hagadol, Jehoiada. When her mother, Ataliah, started murdering all her male grandchildren in cold-blood, Jehosheba spirited away her nephew, a baby prince called Yoash, into the Temple, where she hid him for 6 years, until she and her husband could depose Ataliah in a coup.

Ataliah never went to visit that orthodox Temple once during her reign – once she took over the country, the Baal worshipping feminists stopped having their monthly ‘do’ in the women’s courtyard – so she never figured out what was going on until it was too late[12].

Ataliah continued to worship the Baal – and a whole bunch of other idols – right up until the end, when Jehoiada had her executed, and the Talmud even relates that she ‘married’ (ahem…) an Ashera tree on a regular basis. Because hey, who needs men, right?!

Especially with all that ‘toxic masculinity’ they have going on.

It’s amazing what you can learn when you crack open the pages of Tanach, not least, as King Shlomo so wisely stated way back when:

There is nothing new under the sun.

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“Do not turn to idols…R Chanin said: ‘The verse is interpreted to mean: Do not turn to that which comes from your minds[13].’” – Tractate Shabbos 149a

 

FOOTNOTES:

 

[1] Kings I, 18:4

[2] “Evil though he was, without Jezebel’s contemptible influence, Achav would not have followed the Baal, which required the revolting practice of sacrificing children.” – Malbim, Artscroll footnote to Kings I, 16:31

[3] “There had never been anyone like Achav, who sold himself to do what was evil in the eyes of Hashem, because Jezebel his wife had incited him.” – Kings I, 21:25

[4] “[Achav] erected an altar for the Baal in the Temple of the Baal that he built in Samaria” – Kings I, 16:33

[5] “[Jehoram] went in the way of the Kings of Israel, just as the house of Achav had done, for Achav’s daughter had become his wife; he did what was evil in the eyes of Hashem.” – Kings II, 8:17

[6] “Scripture implies that the queen’s influence was decisive in corrupting Jehoram.” – Kli Yakar, Artscroll footnote to Kings II, 8:18

[7] “Just as Athaliah’s mother, Jezebel, brought the Baal to the Ten Tribes, so her daughter influenced Jehoram to bring it to Judah” – Artscroll footnote to Kings II, 8:18.

[8] “[Jehoram] had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat – Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariahu, Michael and Shephatiah….Jehoram rose up over the kingdom of his father, and…he killed all of his brothers by the sword” – Chronicles II, 21:2-4

[9] “Jehu then came to Jezreel. Jezebel heard, and she put mascara on her eyes and adorned her head, and she looked out of the window.” – Kings II, 9:30

[10] “Rashi cites the Sages’ tradition that Ahaziah’s wickedness was so extreme…he took a Torah scroll and erased all mentions of Hashem’s name, and replaced them with the names of his idols.” – Artscroll footnote to Kings II, 9:27.

[11] “When Athaliah, Ahaziah’s mother, saw that her son had died, she arose and exterminated all the offspring of the royal family.” Kings I, 11:1

[12] “[Yoash] remained…in the Temple of Hashem, hidden for six years, while Athaliah reigned over the land.” – Kings II, 11:3

[13] The word אלילים (idols) is cognate with the word חללילים (recesses – of a man’s heart and mind) – Rashi: cf. Chidushei HaRan and Tos. Rid).

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