Candle lighting time in Indianapolis for Friday, September 3, 2010: 7:56 PM
Shabbat ends in Indianapolis on Saturday, September 4, 2010: 8:54 PM
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Adapted from the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory
Lubavitch of Indiana 

Shabbat Shalom!

“We. Are. Family.”
 
This week we read two Torah portions, Nitzavim and Vayelech (Deuteronomy 29:9–31:30), beginning with the statement: “You are all standing together this day before G-d... the leaders of your tribes, your elders, your officers, all the men of Israel, your children and your wives, to pass into G-d’s covenant.”

When two individuals feel a powerful attraction to each other but realize that with the passage of time the attraction could wane, they establish a covenant. The covenant maintains their connection even at times when on a conscious level there might be reasons for distance and separation.

This portion of the Torah is read every year on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year, because on Rosh Hashanah, the covenant between G-d and the Jewish people is renewed. On Rosh Hashanah we “are all standing... before G-d.” The essential G-dly core which every person possesses arises to the forefront of his consciousness, and the fundamental bond between G-d and humankind surfaces. On this basis a covenant is renewed for the entire year to come, including the inevitable occasions when these feelings of oneness will not be experienced as powerfully.

Shalom Friends,

We are all broken due to the horrible terrorist attack last night. The in-laws of the young man who was killed live in Efrat and one of the women killed in the attack was a teacher here.

May Am Yisrael merit true peace and complete redemption. 

Brandeis University’s Maurice and Marilyn Cohen’s Center for Modern Jewish studies is out with a survey on American Jewish attitudes toward Israel. The lengthy report is certainly worth reviewing in its entirety. I will highlight a few findings as well as some of the conclusions that the study’s authors draw. One caveat: the study as released does not break down responses by denomination (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform). I have e-mailed the center asking if such material is available and will certainly report back with the response I receive.

The study begins by telling us:

Yishai requested that Populations Registry head Amnon Ben-Ami act to relax conditions, including allowing settlers to acquire weapons without police approval, relying instead on professional opinions from the Interior Ministry, the Population Registry and the Immigration Authority.

Ames had been licensed to carry a weapon through his employment as a security guard. Approximately six months ago, Ames’s weapon permit was suspended, allegedly due to his involvement in public disturbances.

“I instructed to immediately relax the registration of weapons to residents of Judea and Samaria,” Yishai explained Wednesday.

Within a few hours of Tuesday night’s terror attack, in which Ames and his wife as well as two other residents of Beit Hagai were gunned down near Kiryat Arba by Palestinian terrorists, settlers’ advocates railed against the fact that Ames’s personal weapon had been seized in late 2009.

FROM THE DESK OF BARBARA GINSBERG
September 3, 2010

           “But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet and the people be not warned; if the sword cometh and take from them a soul…his blood will I require from the watchman”.  (Ezekiel 33)

            I sit on the mountain with a trumpet in my hand.  We all sit on a mountain, each of us a watchman with a trumpet in hand.  Our mission is to sit and see the enemy.  Our mission is to see the danger, to search our own souls and to blow the trumpet and warn the rest – the rest of the Jewish people.

            I sit on a mountain as the sands slip through, the clock ticks away and the Almighty watches from above to see whether the sleeping Jew will awake on top of the mountain to see the enemy and blow the trumpet and save himself and all the rest and reclaim his greatness and his destiny before there are no more years left.

            We are all watchmen, we Jews.  We are commanded to know the danger, to see it approach, to blow the trumpet and save, both ourselves and our fellow Jews.

            How possible to sit on a mountain and behave like valleys! How incredible that we sit on high, seeing all that is below, and sees nothing!  How awful that the watchman sleeps even as the enemy grows bolder and comes closer and the clock that ticks, rings its alarm, shrilly, without pause, and he hears nothing.  We are a nation of watchmen on a hill and we sleep the sleep of the mediocre fool.  “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest; so shall thy poverty come as one who travels and they want as an armed man.” (Proverbs 6) 

            I sit on the mountain and, behold, the enemy, the terrible dangers, are in full view.  There they are, there they approach, those who travel, as armed men.  Jew, can you not see them:

By Maayana Miskin
Arutz Sheva
September 2, 2010    24 Elul, 5770

(Israelnationalnews.com) Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is serious about making peace with Israel, President Shimon Peres said Thursday in a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. “All the leaders involved... are serious in their intentions and understand the seriousness and supreme importance of achieving peace,” he said.

“The alternative to peace is a radical and dangerous Iranian hegemony in the entire Middle East,” Peres warned.

The Pope told Peres that he is praying for peace. A peace deal between Israel and the PA would have “world-wide historical value,” he emphasized.

(Israelnationalnews.com) The closer reality comes to blowing down—or blowing up—the Obama administration’s house of cards, the more its jokers succumb to pressure and bend their warped values beyond recognition.

Even the mainstream media covering the U.S. State Department have finally begun not to swallow the daily report, i.e. hogwash, spewed out by State Department Spokesman Phillip. J. Crowley.

His credentials are impeccable: He is a former Senior Fellow and Director of Homeland Security at the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress, which is partly funded by J Street founder billionaire George Soros.

With those credentials, it is not surprising that Crowley crossed all the red lines of decency when he spoke to reporters just hours after Palestinian Authority terrorists riddled the bodies of four Israeli civilians, including a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy.

September 2, 2010

In as much as I have frequently faulted Israel's religious parties on the territorial issue, and since I deem them, along with non-religious parties, complicit in the truncation of this country, the reader should refrain from using simplistic labels to describe the present author. 

The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel 

Following the brutal murder this week of four Israelis south of Hebron, The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel demanded that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein disband the special team for law enforcement in Judea and Samaria responsible for gun control procedures in the area.

Deputy State Prosecutor, Attorney Shai Nitzan, heads the team for "Law Enforcement in Judea and Samaria", which operates within the Ministry of Justice and includes representatives of the IDF, the police, the Shabak etc. Until several years ago this team was top secret and its existence and operations were only recently disclosed. It operates on a selective basis.

The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel has complained to the Attorney General on several occasions about the team's activities. Following the brutal murder south of Hebron this week, the Legal Forum is once again calling for the disbanding of the team.

Carrying weapons for self defense is common among Jews who reside or work in Judea and Samaria. Yitzhak Imes of Bet Haggai who was murdered on Wednesday night was without his handgun. His firearms license was revoked following his participation in protest activities prior to the Disengagement. This past April Attorney Itzhak Bam, a member of The Legal Forum and a personal friend of Imas, appealed the suspension of Imes' [renewed] firearms license. By law, Attorney Bam should have received a response to his appeal within 45 days, however, when Yitzhak Imes was murdered on August 31st, the authorities had not yet answered why his license was still suspended.

(Israelnationalnews.com) Terrorists wounded an Israeli girl, a resident of Har Bracha, on Thursday night in a rock attack near the Tapuach junction in Samaria.

According to reports, the girl was travelling with her parents in the family vehicle when Arabs threw stones towards the vehicle near Kfar Haras. The girl was hit in the head by a heavy stone in the attack. Her parents continued to drive until the Tapuach junction where she was given initial treatment.

The victim was taken to the Schneider Children's Hospital in Petach Tikvah. Her condition was defined as moderate, meaning that doctors do not currently fear for her life but that there is a risk of permanent handicap.

IDF soldiers are searching for the perpetrators.

Earlier in the evening an Israeli man reported that terrorists fired on his car as he drove near the town of Ofra, north of Jerusalem. IDF soldiers investigated and said the sounds the man heard were caused by fireworks, not gunshots.

They were massacred.  They died and who cares?  Certainly not Leftist politicians or Leftists who either ignore or rejoice when settlers’ families are murdered by Arab Muslims.   Certainly not the Leftist Media.  (More on that later.)
         
Trying to capitalize on the positive spin, Palestinian Authority Terror groups are scrambling to claim credit for a second shooting attack north of Jerusalem that miraculously left Rabbi Moshe and his wife Shira Moreno "only" wounded late Wednesday night.

MK Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz sent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu an unforgiving message upon the beginning of “peace talks” in Washington. The two terror attacks this week that left five dead (including an unborn baby in its ninth month of development) and two wounded would not have occurred, he said, were it not for 'gestures' made to the Palestinian Authority, and restrictions placed on Jewish construction.

"This is the first time in Jewish history that a Jewish leader in the Land of Israel – with the exception of Herod and the like – issued an edict that Jews may not build. There were only non-Jewish leaders who issued such decrees – Romans, Greeks, Seljuks and Mameluks – but never did it occur that a Jew issued a decree barring Jews from building only because they are Jews. Not even under Rabin, Barak, Sharon and Olmert.”

"When you issue such decrees,” Ketzaleh explained, “it is a small wonder that the Arabs understand this as meaning that since we belong to the unclean caste, the despised caste, the discriminated-against caste – then it is alright to fire at us on the roads.”

"Jewish history will not forgive and will not forget,” Katz said. “The Jewish people does not forget... It is very sensitive to its rights and to the decrees made against it. It does not forget the European expulsions, it does not forget the expulsion at Gush Katif by Ariel Sharon, it will not forget the decrees by Olmert at Amona, and it will never, never, never forget what Netanyahu did with the edict that 350,000 Jews must not build.”

(Israelnationalnews.com) The PA-based Ma’an News Agency has solicited opinions from people in the news on the negotiations that are about to begin in Washington: two Arabs, one Peace Now member, and, surprisingly, a “Jewish settler” from the heart of Shomron, David Ha’Ivri.

Ha’Ivri concentrated in his remarks on the lack of helpfulness inherent in the U.S. pressure on both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This pressure is “actually counterproductive,” he writes. “Peace is not made by negotiators; peace is made by neighbors. Twisting the arms of our leaders and forcing them to pose for a photo op with American President Barack Obama will not make our people love each other any more.”

“These direct talks are really not about Israel and the PA,” Ha’Ivri states, “and not even about Netanyahu and Abbas. This charade is all about Obama, who is losing popularity in both Muslim and Jewish support bases in America… America's unaccomplished president will have his prize as soon as he finishes posing with the two leaders and can hang that picture next to similar ones of Jimmy Carter and George Bush.”

“Traveling 9,000 kilometers away from the problem does not bring us any closer to the solution,” Ha’Ivri wrote on Ma’an. “True peace in the region will only emerge through local efforts based on local prescriptions… If peace is the ultimate goal, talks in these circumstances will surely take us further from it; we see that both sides have become aggravated from the pressure and [are acting] like trapped animals looking for a way out. The time has come for our peoples to develop our own brave leadership that will have the wisdom to say ‘Thank you but, no thank you’ to foreign powers who wish to impose their policies on our local issues… We are in no need of their timetables and frame-works. We will work out our differences at our own pace with our own local solutions that very well might be totally revolutionary to the Western concepts that they wish to force-feed us.” 

(Israelnationalnews.com) Several weeks ago, Arutz7 reported exclusively that dozens of new tombs were being added to the Mamilla Cemetery, an ancient Muslim cemetery located on the outskirts of Jerusalem's Independence Park, but no one is buried beneath them. These faked graves were in fact a Muslim project aimed at taking over land.

Following Arutz7’s report, the faked tombs were removed by the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel Lands Authority.

Now, it appears as though the same phenomenon is occurring also in the area of the Eastern Wall in Jerusalem (adjacent to the Western Wall). The Arabs are simply ignoring a law that deems the area a national park.

Maya Shukri of the El Har HaMoriyah Institute, who documented the faked graves with her camera, told Arutz7 on Wednesday that at the present time, the graves are empty but an infrastructure is in place for future burials. Shukri, who compared older photographs to photographs taken recently, said that “there are markings [of graves] there, but underneath there is only soil. Some of them don’t have a tombstone.”

About a year ago, Israel’s High Court responded to an appeal which was brought forth and ruled that no burial would be allowed to take place on these grounds, and in fact, ruled that the area is to be transformed into a national park. The decision meant that the area would be cleaned, benches will be placed, and proper lighting installed.

September 2, 2010

Whereas religious man starts out in this world and ends up in mystical realms, Judaic man takes up his position in this world and deals with it in a manner comparable to that of a mathematical physicist who, at the same time, is also a physician.  Like the physicist he has "a priori, ideal constructs" (the laws of the Torah).  If he were only a physicist, his sole aim would be to reveal the correspondence between the ideal world and concrete reality.  But since he is also a physician living in an imperfect human world, he tries, on a case by case basis, to make part of that world approximate the "a priori, ideal constructs" of the Halakha.

(Israelnationalnews.com) For those seeking hints of American partiality to one side or the other as the direct Netanyahu-Abbas talks begin in Washington, yesterday’s daily State Department briefing provided several.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley devoted a good portion of his time to the topic of the talks that are to begin today, and was even asked what was the shape of the table to be used by the sides.

Asked by a reporter about the impact on the talks of the fatal terrorist attack and the intention of some Jews to resume construction, Crowley continued the questioner’s tit-for-tat tone and equated between the “extremists on all sides.” 

“We are gratified,” Crowley said, “that notwithstanding efforts by extremists on all sides to take actions that impede progress,” the talks will continue. 

Crowley then criticized the murders, saying, “Yesterday’s violence was not an act of courage; it was an act of cowardice. What kind of courage does it take to murder a pregnant woman?” but in the next breath he said, “Hamas is a captive of the conflict.”

(Israelnationalnews.com) Rabbi Moshe Moreno, who was shot Wednesday night in the second Palestinian terrorist roadside attack in as many nights, says he is only now realizing the magnitude of the miracles that befell him.

From his hospital bed in Hadassah Hospital where the bullet wound to his leg is being treated, he spoke with Arutz-7’s Uzi Baruch on Thursday morning and said, “I’m not sure if I’m 37 years old – or one day old, after what happened to me last night. So I figure I’m somewhere in between, a youth of about 18 and a half… Only now that I am out of it, I can recount about ten miracles that happened to us in the space of about five minutes, with praise and thanks to G-d.”

Rabbi Moreno teaches at the pre-military yeshiva academy in Maaleh Ephraim, on the western edge of the Jordan Valley. He is the younger brother of one of the most famous casualties of the 2nd Lebanon War of 2006, Lt.-Col. Emanuel Moreno, who was known for his leadership skills, bravery, all-around soldiering, spirituality, and meticulous adherence to religious values.

For those looking for some context to understand how Israel came to be in this dire situation, it’s helpful to look back at where it all started – the 1993 Oslo Accords, or what might be better termed ‘The Ostrich Accords’.

For the creators of Oslo were people who refused to face reality, and when reality did intrude, chose to bury their heads in the sand. A popular TV show, “Mythbusters,” has as its tagline “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” This should have been the official tagline of the Oslo Accords.

     Since the idea of a 'Middle East peace process' was first raised in the international community, its ostensible purpose was based on the concept of achieving peace between Israel and her neighbors in exchange for a two state solution - one for Israel and one for the 'Palestinians'.

     This concept was officially established in 1977 when then-President Jimmy Carter took up the banner for Yassir Arafat and publicly called for the creation of a "Palestinian homeland". Two intifadas, two wars, and countless lives lost in terrorist attacks on civilian populations later, the quest for successful 'peace talks' is still going on. This has been a political priority for every successive American president since Carter. Each president has given Middle East peace a high position on his list of presidential goals. Each president appears to have wanted to go down in history as the one who achieved peace in the region.

     While the aim may be laudable in principle, it is flawed from beginning to end. In what is perceived as a possible peace framework, every president since Jimmy Carter has overlooked or ignored the realities of the region, and the true character of the people most critically affected by the outcome. By accepting the 'Palestinian' leadership as a viable and honest partner in the process, American administrations have not only entered a no win situation, but endangered the lives of millions of civilians in the region.