web analytics
May 23, 2013 /14 Sivan, 5773
At a Glance ▼
InDepth
Sponsored Post
The Tosfos Yomtov was convinced that the death of 300,000 –600,000 Jews during the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 were because of improper Tefila. Communicated: Tefilla

Chillul Tefila Bifarhesia, as well as halachicly challenged verbiage and dress, are external manifestations of a critical lack of personal yiras shomayim which has lethal consequences.



Does God Want A Center-Right Israeli Government?


Latest update: April 22nd, 2013
tell a friend
Shurin-Dov

I write this column with my bags packed. I’m lighting four candles in Israel and my fifth I will light Wednesday evening at about 9 p.m. in the lobby of the Avenue Plaza Hotel in Boro Park. I’ll have my guitar in hand, and everyone is invited.

As I gaze into the light of the holy Chanukah candles I can’t help but note that we begin this festival at the darkest moment of the year, and as we add candles nightly, the days actually begin to get longer; there is a parallel increase of light.

The two Torah portions (Vayeshev and Miketz) pre-Chanukah and during Chanukah follow this same pattern, spiritually.

Yaakov is 108 years old and wants a serene retirement. Instead, he finds himself in his darkest hour, as his sons present him with a bloodied jacket and lead him to believe that their brother Joseph had been ripped apart by a wild animal. The portion ends with an innocent Joseph in jail for thirteen years.

But with each succeeding Chanukah candle, the next portion, Miketz, shines forth. Joseph is brought from jail to the king. He interprets Pharaoh’s dream and is soon declared second only to the king.

This darkness-to-light period extends for 22 years, but the ending is so beautiful, with Yaakov living his final 17 years in extreme happiness in Egypt.

Let’s shift our focus to our darkest hour here in Israel. It’s nineteen years since the signing of the Oslo Accords. The Palestinians have clearly violated that agreement, which called for negotiations. Hamas controls Gaza. Its terrorist leaders launched an assault of rockets aimed at our civilian population centers. We agreed a to cease-fire with Hamas, which only heightened its legitimacy. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, without condemning Hamas, went to the UN and won a giant upgrade of the Palestinans’ status at the world body. Mashel, Hamas’s leader, visited Gaza for the 25th anniversary of the founding of his organization and declared that peace will only be possible with the destruction of Israel. Abbas had no problem with this.

The peace process is, therefore, nonexistent.

Israel reacted by declaring it would now proceed to build in the area called E1 and add 3,000 homes in contested territories. The possibility of a third intifada looms over the region. All this while Iran continues to work on a nuclear bomb. In Syria the race is on to see who will grab control of that country’s chemical weapons arsenal.

And with all this going on, the European Union has chosen to discuss only the “serious” problem of Israel’s decision to build those new homes.

So this is certainly a time for God’s Charming Nation to do some serious praying that a new Israeli government be formed – one consisting of a center-right–religious bloc capable of making very important decisions for Israel’s future.

This, I think, is the type of government God would prefer, and I base this on the popular pasuk in Psalm 19 – “I have placed Hashem at my center [in front of me] and since He is at my right, I shall not fall.”

Now, if Hashem is at my center facing me, then how is He is also at my right? The answer, I once heard, is that the verse is referring to two levels of consciousness. It is best if we can hold a vision of God’s Will in front of us, to be at the “center” of our decisions, but if not, we at least keep Him at our “right,” always standing close beside us.

My father, zt”l, liked to say that the Rambam explained the biblical verse “And the tree of life is in the center of the garden” (Bereishis 2:9) as meaning: The way to live your life is in the center, not at the extremes.

In that vein I want to congratulate my fellow Jewish Press columnist Moshe Feiglin, who received my vote in the Likud primaries, for succeeding in placing high enough on the party list to become a Knesset member following the upcoming election.

It was interesting to hear him say, on Israel television, that he stands by the policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The moderator warned him, “You are being videotaped – are you sure you want to state this, since you’ve always differed with Bibi?”

tell a friend

About the Author: Dov Shurin is a popular radio personality and the composer and producer of several albums of original composition. He lives with his family in Israel and can be contacted at dovshurin@yahoo.com. His column will appear in The Jewish Press every other week.


You might also be interested in:


no comments

You must log in to post a comment.

No Responses to “Does God Want A Center-Right Israeli Government?”

  1. Yehoshua Friedman says:
    December 23, 2012 at 4:02 AM

    The suspicion is that Bibi is trying to make a center-left government and leave the Bayit Hayehudi (to say nothing of Otzma L'Yisrael) out in the cold, intead courting Labor, Livni and Lapid. Feiglin won't like that.

SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Current Top Story
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has said he will never recognize a Jewish state and there will be no Jews allowed in a Palestinian State.
J Street: Demand Israel’s Peace Process Goal be Palestinian State
Latest Indepth Stories
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has said he will never recognize a Jewish state and there will be no Jews allowed in a Palestinian State.
InDepth → Op-Eds

parently an affront to J Street’s worldview, the focus of which appears to be the creation of a Palestinian State, whether or not that will bring peace.

Moshe-Feiglin-022213
InDepth → Columns → Moshe Feiglin

The importance of the caucus on organ harvesting in China, sponsored recently by the Liberal Lobby in the Knesset, cannot be exaggerated. On the surface, the caucus’s topic seems odd. Knesset members and other VIPs were called together to discuss horrors being perpetrated by the Communist regime in China against what the government there calls “regime opponents.”

Shurin-Dov
InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

My mother, the eldest daughter of Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt”l, was niftar last month at the age of 92. She took her last breath in her home in Efrat, Israel, next door to the shul that was my father’s for 24 years before his passing in 2007.

InDepth → Columns → Louis Rene Beres

Following the Boston Marathon bombing, one crucial point will likely remain overlooked. The most loathsome aspect of this or any other terror bombing attack on civilians will always lie in the inexpressibility of physical pain. While all decent people will abhor the idea of bombs expressly directed at the innocent, whether here or in other countries, none will ever be able to process the very deepest horrors of what has been inflicted.

InDepth → Columns → Keeping Jerusalem

It’s only natural to see increasing evidence of Jerusalem’s glorious Jewish past being unearthed, quite literally, under modern Israeli sovereignty. The new archaeological finds are also very timely – as the Arab onslaught attempting to detach Jerusalem from its Jewish roots gains steam, the facts on the ground, or “under” the ground, show quite otherwise.

InDepth → Op-Eds

The Talmud (Berachot 26b) says, “tefillot avot tiknum” – “prayer was established by the avot.” The Talmud then uses the following verse (Bereshit 19:27) to prove how Avraham established prayer: “Vayaskem Avraham baboker el hamakom asher amad sham et pnei Hashem” – “And Avraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before God.”

InDepth → Op-Eds

Nearly 13 years ago, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak journeyed to Camp David to end the conflict with the Palestinians. With the approval of President Clinton, he offered Yasir Arafat an independent Palestinian state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza and in part of Jerusalem. Arafat said no.

InDepth → Op-Eds

The news that the Internal Revenue Service unfairly targeted conservative groups has brought renewed spotlight on a 2010 lawsuit filed by the pro-Israel group Z Street, which alleges it was also singled out by the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status.

InDepth → Editorial

In an editorial last week (“Circling the Wagons”) we noted the efforts by the administration and its supporters to dismiss allegations that the government’s spin on the Benghazi attack was designed to shield the president and that the IRS was improperly used to stifle opposition to Mr. Obama’s reelection.

InDepth → Editorial

As the controversies besetting the Obama administration continue to grow in number and intensity, the prospect that President Obama would seriously consider military action against Iran, should that country continue its drive to become a nuclear power, becomes more and more remote. So we welcome the current enhancement of sanctions against Iran on the federal and New York State levels.

InDepth → Interviews and Profiles

To his parents’ friends, he was “Mrs. Greenberg’s disgrace,” but to sports fans he is one of the greatest – if not the greatest – Jewish baseball players of all time. Long before Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg excited Jewish sports fans with his prowess on the baseball diamond.

InDepth → Front Page

To eat is to live – to keep our physical bodies alive. For without the body, there is nothing. No experience. No memory. No joy and no hardship. But man, unlike animals, eats to live and to enjoy. So how should a Jew respond when he is challenged as to why he imposes upon himself not just ceremonies dedicated to the enjoyment of eating but even more to the limiting of what he can eat?

InDepth → Op-Eds

Neither Secretary of State Kerry nor the president he serves seem to understand Russia’s goals in the Middle East.

More Articles from Dov Shurin
Shurin-Dov
InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

My mother, the eldest daughter of Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt”l, was niftar last month at the age of 92. She took her last breath in her home in Efrat, Israel, next door to the shul that was my father’s for 24 years before his passing in 2007.

Shurin-Dov
InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

I want to share a Holocaust story as told to me by Heshy Frank, owner of Quality Carpet and my radio sponsor for the past 32 years.

InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

For days and weeks before Pesach, we meticulously clean our homes, making sure that not a crumb of bread might, God forbid, be found when we begin the festival of matzahs.

InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

The post-election coalition negotiations are underway and it may take several weeks for the country to finally have a new government, with Prime Minister Netanyahu once again at its helm.

InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

I’m writing this on the day before Israelis vote for our Knesset, but one thing I can presume is that unless a cow is seen jumping over our ten-day-old new moon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be asked by Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, to form the next government.

InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

My most recent column elicited a fascinating response from an American woman. Before I share that letter and my reply, I will briefly reiterate the substance of that Dec. 28 column, which was titled “My Reasons to Be Jolly.”

InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

I’m wrapping up my trip to the U.S., a visit that for the first time in many years happened to coincide with Christmas.

InDepth → Columns → Dov Shurin

I write this column with my bags packed. I’m lighting four candles in Israel and my fifth I will light Wednesday evening at about 9 p.m. in the lobby of the Avenue Plaza Hotel in Boro Park. I’ll have my guitar in hand, and everyone is invited.

    Latest Poll

    Which is the most beautiful location in Jerusalem?









    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...

Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/dov-shurin-columns/does-god-want-a-center-right-israeli-government/2012/12/12/

Scan this QR code to visit this page online:

Related posts:

  1. Which Mitzvah Comes First?
  2. Staten Island
Close