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Israel’s Jewish State Legislation

Re “Formally Recognizing Israel’s Jewishness Will Not Set Back Peace” (op-ed, Dec. 12):

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Israelis opposed to the Jewish state legislation need to wake up, stop trying to be politically correct, and see the truth.

Israel is a democracy and will remain so forever, treating its minorities with respect and decency. But Israel is our restored homeland, given to Jews by God and developed by Jews, and as such it must represent who we are. Just as Italy and Spain mean Catholicism and Greece is synonymous with Greek Orthodoxy and England is represented by the Church of England (i.e. Anglican Communion), so should Israel be Jewish by denomination.

Johana Nadler
(Via JewishPress.com)

Unapologetic

Ambassador Ron Prosor’s words (“We Will Never Apologize for Defending Ourselves,” op-ed, Dec. 12) need to be repeated over and over and as loud as possible until the deaf will hear and the blind will see at the UN.

Bruce Pollock
(Via JewishPress.com)

 

Right And Wrong (I)

Elliot Resnick (“Whatever Happened To Right and Wrong?”, op-ed, Dec. 5) waxed warm and fuzzy in his eloquent piece, urging Jews to do what is right rather than just slavishly follow the halacha as to what is permitted or prohibited.

But I fear he has missed a very important point about a Torah life. Actually, the Torah prescribes how one should act toward another – to the needy and unfortunate, to one’s family, to business associates. The Torah is an all-encompassing guide. When one acts kindly toward another, it’s because the Torah says one should so act. And when one does act in this way, one should feel he or she is acting not out of compassion emanating from his or her own heart but because the Torah decreed such.

The old mocking refrain that religious people are more concerned about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin doesn’t apply to Jews. We must be concerned with all that the Torah teaches, not just those rules and regulations governing such things as kashrut and shmiras Shabbos, davening, or the proper berachah to make.

The Torah regulates all aspects of life, so much so that resorting to the Torah to ascertain the appropriate interpersonal interaction in a particular situation is no less important than when we want to know whether or not something is treif.

Some rules may be harder to discern than others, but they all comprise the Torah’s mosaic. In fact, they are all mitzvot, which is a word for commandment in lashon hakodesh.

Moshe Gelman
Via E-Mail

 

Right And Wrong (II)

I applaud Elliot Resnick for tackling a disturbing phenomenon that I think seems to have overtaken many in the frum world. I don’t understand how a person can feel complete as a Jew when he limits himself to the observance of the legal black-letter rules and regulations and ignores innate notions of what is proper conduct.

Mr. Resnick seems to have a grounded familiarity with the world of mussar. I found particularly interesting his quotes from the Alter of Slabodka and Chovos Halevavos. They are relevant today just as they were then.

It seems that people really don’t change all that much and our romanticized view of the Jewish past is somewhat misplaced.

Elisheva Hunter
Jerusalem

Festival Of Light And Song

Chanukah’s roots lie in the victory of the Maccabees over the Selucid Greeks and the purification of the Temple, with the miracle being the single cruse of oil that burned for eight days. They say a miracle is a “natural” event that happens exactly when it is needed. Perhaps that is why, just prior to Chanukah in 1995, an exciting archaeological find was made in Israel – one that indicated a Hasmonean presence in the Modiin area.

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