Chashouve rabbanim, roshe Yeshivos, tyre yidden, members of the press, friends and fellow protesters,
We are assembled here this afternoon because the homeland of the Jewish people is under attack. The homeland of the Jewish people is currently under attack by vile enemies who would see it destroyed. And we’re here this afternoon to speak up for the defense of the homeland and to protect it from those who seek its destruction.
The homeland of the Jewish people is … the Torah Hakedosha! Jews are not a nationality and have no nation state, because unlike all the other oumos who exist because of a common land, language or culture, the Jewish people exist only because they accepted a common religion, because they accepted the Torah from Hachem on Har Sinai.
In the desert, where we possessed no land, no territory, and no state.
Hayom haze nihyesa leam! Today, the day of Kabbalat HaTorah, we became a nation.
Within the borders of our homeland, the Torah, we flourish; outside of its borders we die. And our homeland has accompanied us into every territory that we have lived during the two thousand years of our exile.
The world wonders how the Jewish people survived for two thousand years in Galus with no political infrastructure, no army, no common land, language or culture. But we don’t wonder. We survived because we did not rely on an army, a land or a culture for our survival. Armies are defeated, lands are conquered, and cultures come and go. But the holy Torah is eternal, and its protection is eternal, and its people are eternal – so long as they remain its people. The people of the Torah. The Jewish Nation.
We were a proud people. Proud to be the custodian of the Eternal Book of books. Proud to live our lives morally and in dignity and in conformance with the Ratson Hachem. We had no aspirations to be great warriors, win Nobel prizes or gold medals. We were proud to be pious, scholarly and moral. We were proud to be Jews.
When we prospered we were proud, and when we were persecuted we were proud. Especially when we were persecuted we were proud because then we were proud … that we were not our persecutors! We were proud that we were the oppressed and not the oppressors. When we were persecuted we thanked Hashem every day that we were prophets and not persecutors.
But there were those who were not proud. There were those, who were ashamed. They loved the lifestyle of the anti-Semites. They envied their power, their ruthlessness, their tanks and their planes. They were ashamed that a Jew was a Torah scholar and not a soldier. They were ashamed that Jews named their children Yisroel Meyer, Velvel or Yoyle, and not Nimrod or Omri. They were ashamed that the Jews would rather celebrate finishing a Massehta, rather than win a soccer championship. They were ashamed that the Jews would rather invent a new Pshat in a Tossfos rather than a new form of martial arts. They looked at the Jew the same way the anti-Semites did: ugly, despicable, weak and shameful. They looked at this Jew the same way, if we could imagine the way a gorilla would look at a human being: pale, weak and worthless.
They were Jewish versions of the anti-Semites. They hated Jewishness and they hated Jews. They hated Judaism! But they could not live amongst the anti-Semites, because the anti-Semites persecuted them too. Poor koyfrim! Whatever shall they do?
Their solution was: Zionism. It’s goal: To destroy all that makes the Jewish people in their eyes so weak, so despised. To destroy all that makes the Jewish people so … so Jewish. They diagnosed what they called “the Jewish problem” and decided that the source of the problem is Judaism, the religion itself, “If only we could get rid of Judaism, and be more like our persecutors,” they figured, “our lives would be so much better.”
But don’t believe me about this. Let’s give the Zionists a chance to speak for themselves. I quote from one of their founding fathers, a man whose version of Zionism is the dominant one in Israel today, Vladimir Jabotinsky shem reshaim yirkav. I quote:
“What is a Zionist?” This is what he said:
“To imagine what a true Zionist is, picture a Yid of today, and try to imagine in our minds his exact opposite. Because the Yid is ugly, sickly, and lacks handsomeness הדרת פנים
we shall endow the ideal image of the Hebrew with masculine beauty, stature, massive shoulders, vigorous movements, bright colors, and shades of color. The Yid is frightened and downtrodden; the Hebrew ought to be proud and independent. The Yid is disgusting to all; the Hebrew should charm all. The Yid has accepted submission; the Hebrew ought to know how to command.”
Jewishness was a destructive doctrine that needed to be eradicated, and the Zionists did their best to eradicate it. They wanted to repeal and replace Judaism, to replace religion with nationalism, to replace the Talmud with tanks, to change the People of the Book to the People of the Bomb.
So they made a state and they declared this state to be the nation-state of the Jewish people; they created a language – Ivrit – and they decided that it is the language of the Jewish people; they made an army, and they decided that this army is what defends the Jewish people.
But the Jewish people have no state, we have no national language and there is no army of the Jews. What they created is a statehood, but it doesn’t possess any aspect of Jewishness or Judaism in any form of manner. The truth is that the state of Israel has as much to do with Judaism and Jewish identity as China or Korea does. They should stop calling themselves Israel and stop calling themselves a Jewish State because those are lies! They can call themselves, if they want, Herzlstan, the nation state of the Herzlstanis. Or they could call themselves the Canaanim if they want. They can call themselves whatever they want, but they are not Israel, and they are not the state of the Jews.
For over a hundred years, this assault on our identity has raged, and the Zionists have used many ways and means to repeal and replace Judaism. But the strongest weapon throughout the years that they used was indoctrination, propaganda. And the strongest tool of propaganda is their army. The Israeli army is not merely a military organization. Israel set up its military to be an indoctrination camp for its Zionist ideology. It’s designed to be an educational institution, not merely to teach its recruits how to shoot, but to teach them how to be Zionists. Not merely to get their soldiers to serve the Zionist country, but to serve the Zionist gods. I
Israel’s Army is a church of Zionism.
Ben-Gurion called the Zionist army a melting pot. He said it was designed “to clean, refine and purify the Jews of their foreign garbage.” It sounds more like a rehab then an army to me – and indeed, it is a rehab! But what the Israel’s army wants to rehabilitate us from, we would give our lives to retain.
The IDF’s Officers Training manual was found to include lectures on the following topics:
What is Judaism?
Is Judaism a religion, a way of life or a constitution of a nation?
What is the identity of the Jewish people?
What business does the military have to teach about religion? Imagine if the Belgian army, for example, was to teach its soldiers about Christianity or Islam, and tell them “What your priests taught you about Christianity, what your Imams taught you about Islam is all wrong! We in the army know what Christianity is.” Who in the world would ever tolerate such a thing in an army?! And this is what, from a moral perspective, forfeits Israel’s rights to demand that we serve.
Set aside for now, that we’re in Exile and forbidden by the Torah to have any state. Set aside for now the fact that we are in Exile and forbidden by the Torah to wage war against any nation. Let’s set aside for now all our religious reasons for not serving in the army. The state of Israel has no moral rights to forcibly draft anybody into its army.
If Israel’s army would be merely a military organization, like the American army or the French army, their draft would be as just as those in other countries. But the Israeli army is not a military only. It’s an indoctrination camp for the Zionist religion. No government has a right, even from a secular perspective, to insist that their citizens go through forced religious indoctrination. And that is exactly what the Israeli army does.
Zionists! You created a church of Zionism and then claim that all your citizens have to serve in it! The excuse that your church also happens to be an army does not make your forced religious indoctrination any less odious or disgusting.
Let the word go out from this time and place that we Jews refuse to go like sheep to the slaughter to your Zionists indoctrination camps!
We Jews have a custom on a holiday on the last days of Sukkos, Sim’has Torah, we have a ceremony where we surround the Torah, and we dance around it in a circle. I’d like to give an explanation as to why we do that.
We have a rule: there are two types of persecutions against the Jews that the nations have tried to perpetrate against us. One, is persecution against our physical bodies, like the Persians tried to do on Purim; and then, two, there is the persecution against our religion, like the Syrian-Greeks tried to do during Hanouka. Our reactions to these are different. Hachem protects the Jewish body, G-d protects the Jewish life, and so when our lives are in danger, we pray to Hachem for Him to help us. And Hachem protects the Jews.
But when the Torah is in danger, then we pull out the swords and fight. Hachem protects the Jews but He gave us on Har Sinai His Torah, and this Torah is a pikadon with the Jews and it is our responsibility to protect It.
So all throughout the holiday of Sukkos, Hachem protected us with Anene HaKavod. He surrounded us and protected us from all our enemies. What can we give back to Hachem? Can we snap our fingers and create a Amoud shel eysh to protect the Torah Hakedosha?! Can we say some words and conjure an Amoud Anan to protect the Torah?! No! We cannot. So how do we protect the Torah?
We only have one thing to offer Hachem: Messirous Nefesh! Our own lives! And so, after the Yom Tov where we celebrate Hachem protecting us by circling us with Anene Hakavod, after that, we show Hachem that we will circle His Torah, the way He circled us – with our own bodies!
We are the Anene Hakavod to protect the Torah! And if an Apikores comes to attack the Torah, if the Kofrim come to hurt the Torah, we tell them “If you want to get to the Torah, you have to go through us first! The only way you are going to touch our Torah Hakedosha, is over our dead bodies!”
You can beat us up, Zionists! Every day, they’re beating up Jews, they come with their clenched fists and twisted faces, with their batons, on horseback and on foot, and they beat Jews and they hurt Jews. You know what? You can beat us, you can hurt us, you can put us in jail. But then you’re dealing with Hachem. “Damam lo nikeisi.”
But, when you want to hurt the Torah, then we draw a red line in the sand. And if need be, we draw that red line with our own blood! We won’t let you hurt the Torah Hakedosha!
To every bachur we say: Chazak! Be strong! Never give up your religion. Never give up your Yiddishkeit! Never allow anyone to make you into a Zionist- which is the opposite of a Yid!
Every Jew that goes to jail for refusing to give up his religion, makes a kiddush Hachem! Come, join us and our holy forefathers throughout history and join hand in hand, to create an unbreachable wall in front of the Sefer Torah, so that no one can harm it.
To Hachem we turn and say, We promise You that You placed your Torah in good hands. We promise you, not to allow It to be harmed. We tell Hachem” Your enemies are our enemies! Ouviskomemekha eskotas! Tachlis sinah senessim!”
And to the state of Israel, I have advice, constructive advice:
You have 2 paths in front of you. You can either rescind all the laws, the loopholes, the terms, and that shtik you have, that forces the Jews to go through your indoctrination camps.
Or, your second option is to build more jails. Because you’re going to need them.
Because just as the Jews protect the Torah, Hachem protects the Jews. And just as He protected us from the Romans and the Greeks and all the omdim aleinou lechaloteinou, Hachem will protect us from the Zionists as well. You may have your armies, and your police forces, and your propaganda; you may be able to bribe, to bully and to brainwash. But on our side, is all of Jewish history. On our side is every Jew who was ever mosseir nefesh al kiddush Hachem. On our side is the Ribono shel olam.
And against such power, you stand no chance.
Comments