The deception has taken place. Joseph has been sold into slavery. His brothers have dipped his coat in blood. They bring it back to their father, saying: “Look what we have found. Do you recognize it? Is this your son’s robe or not?” Jacob recognized it and replied, “It is my son’s robe. A wild beast has devoured him. Joseph has been torn to pieces.”

We then read: “Jacob rent his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned his son for a long time. His sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, ‘I will go down to the grave mourning for my son’ ” (37:34-35).

Why did Jacob refuse to be comforted? A midrash gives a remarkable answer. “One can be comforted for one who is dead, but not for one who is still living.”

Jacob refused to be comforted because he had not yet given up hope that Joseph was alive. That, tragically, is the fate of those who have lost members of their family (the parents of soldiers missing in action, for example), but have no proof that they are dead. They cannot go through the normal stages of mourning because they cannot abandon the possibility that the missing person is still capable of being rescued. Their continuing anguish is a form of loyalty; to give up, to mourn, to be reconciled to loss is a kind of betrayal. In such cases, grief lacks closure. To refuse to be comforted is to refuse to give up hope.

On what basis did Jacob continue to hope? The late David Daube made a suggestion that I find convincing. The words the sons say to Jacob – “Haker na – Do you recognize this?” – have a quasi-legal connotation. Daube relates this passage to another, with which it has close linguistic parallels:

“If a man gives a donkey, an ox, a sheep or any other animal to his neighbor for safekeeping … If it [the animal] was torn to pieces by a wild animal, he shall bring the remains as evidence and he will not be required to pay for the torn animal” (Shemot 22:10-13).

The issue at stake is the extent of responsibility borne by a guardian (shomer). If the animal is lost through negligence, the guardian is at fault and must make good the loss. If there is no negligence, merely force majeure, an unavoidable, unforeseeable accident, the guardian is exempt from blame. One such case is where the loss has been caused by a wild animal. The wording in the law – “tarof yitaref – torn to pieces” – exactly parallels Jacob’s judgment in the case of Joseph: “tarof toraf Yosef – Joseph has been torn to pieces.”

We know that some such law existed prior to the giving of the Torah. Jacob himself says to Laban, whose flocks and herds have been placed in his charge, “I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself” (Bereishit 31:39). This implies that guardians even then were exempt from responsibility for the damage caused by wild animals. We also know that an elder brother carried a similar responsibility for the fate of a younger brother placed in his charge (i.e. when the two were alone together). That is the significance of Cain’s denial when confronted by G-d as to the fate of Abel: “Am I my brother’s guardian (shomer)?”

We now understand a series of nuances in the encounter between Jacob and his sons when they return without Joseph. Normally they would be held responsible for their younger brother’s disappearance. To avoid this, as in the case of later biblical law, they “bring the remains as evidence.” If those remains show signs of an attack by a wild animal, they must – by virtue of the law then operative – be held innocent. Their request to Jacob, “haker na,” must be construed as a legal request, meaning, “Examine the evidence.” Jacob has no alternative but to do so, and in virtue of what he has seen, acquit them.

A judge, however, may be forced to acquit someone accused of the crime because the evidence is insufficient to justify a conviction, yet he may hold lingering private doubts. So Jacob was forced to find his sons innocent, without necessarily believing what they said. Jacob did not believe it, and his refusal to be comforted shows that he was unconvinced. He continued to hope that Joseph was still alive. That hope was eventually justified. Joseph was still alive, and eventually father and son were reunited.

Jose Ramos, imprisoned for 20 years for molesting children and the prime suspect in the case of six year old Etan Patz, a Jewish boy from Manhattan who disappeared on his way to school on May 25, 1979, is set to be released on Wednesday.

Ramos was found guilty of Etan’s death in civil court in 2004, but a criminal court found that not enough evidence existed to charge him.  Ramos has denied any responsibility for Patz’s disappearance.

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The Obama-Romney debate has been analyzed from many angles, especially about who won. Yet in the course of the event, Obama said what might be the most revealing slip he has ever made. This one phrase tells more about Obama and the ideology of his left-wing supporters than every other word they have spoken in the last four years.

It came near the end of the debate when Obama was summarizing his policies. He was clearly on comfortable ground, going through all of his cliches. But then, lulled into carelessness by rote repetition of his basic slogans, Obama got lost for a second–as demonstrated by his trademark stutter when he becomes unglued–and dropped in an amazing admission. Obama said:

All those things are designed to make sure that the American people, their genius, their grit, their determination, is — is channeled and [emphasis added] — and they have an opportunity to succeed. And everybody’s getting a fair shot. And everybody’s getting a fair share — everybody’s doing a fair share, and everybody’s playing by the same rules.

Obama was flattering the American people (genius, grit, determination) and promising that everyone will get a fair share (redistribution of wealth?) and fair shot–terms he has never actually defined. As for everybody playing by the same rules, Obama and his supporters favor different rules for each race, gender, and ethnic group, not to mention crony capitalists.

Yet it is that word “channeled” that gives the game away. Channeled by whom? The government, of course, and the great geniuses whose ideology and book-learning seeks to dominate the economy and culture, forcing people to do things for their “own good.” Who has ever proposed that some power should override the liberty of the American people to channel them, to tell them what to do?

The problem is that in a free enterprise (with reasonable regulation) country under the Constitution, Americans decide for themselves what to do. Nobody channels them, a phrase which sounds like a rancher driving his cattle to market. “Channeled” is a nice way to say manipulated, pushed, forced, and ordered.

We are not speaking here of laws against, say, murder or robbery or littering. These are clear and explicit, accepted by a consensus. This is something far more hidden, in which the implications of laws–for example, how Obamacare is intended to produce nationalized medicine–lead to something that the public opposes or certainly doesn’t want. And it is far wider and more systematic than under any previous government, too.

Thus, Americans will be told what they can do in pursuit of good health, what they can eat, how they can do business, what they are supposed to think and know about, what their religious institutions can do, and so on. Can one imagine any of the great American presidents talking about how he was going to “channel” the people with an increasingly large government that soaked up all the capital; determined the investment; set the rules to direct the health system, energy production, the auto industry, and just about everything else? Clearly, Obama wasn’t channeling George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.

In that moment he revealed himself totally. And, as far as I’m aware, nobody even noticed it.

PS: Another typical Obama moment came after the debate when he ridiculed Romney for saying that there were no laws that rewarded companies with tax breaks for exporting American jobs. Any real intellectual or serious leader would simply have cited the specific laws to which he was referring, but Obama merely kept saying how silly–or dishonest–Romney had been without giving any evidence. And any other president would have been pressed to provide evidence. A small incident but quite revealing of how fantasy-based administration policy has become.

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There’s a bit of a mystery surrounding the identity of Sam Bacile, who has claimed to be an Israeli Jew living in California.

Israel Channel 10‘s Nadav Eyal claims that Sam Bacile is a pseudonym and that the film’s creators are ex-Muslims who converted to Christianity – at least one of them Iranian.

The claim is further strengthened, based on statement in the Wall Street Journal, which leads one to suspect that Egyptian Coptic Christians are involved in the film making.

The movie has been promoted in the U.S. by conservative Coptic Christians, including Morris Sadek, who runs a small group called the National American Coptic Assembly. “The violence that it caused in Egypt is further evidence of how violent the religion and people are and it is evidence that everything in the film is factual,” Mr. Sadek said in a telephone interview from his Washington home.

Tzvi Yeheskeli (Channel 10 Arab Affairs Correspondent) questions if the attack on the consulate in Benghazi is actually just about the film, or also revenge for the recent killing of Al Qaeda number 2 in Yemen.

I am not surprised by the level of commitment that skeptics have with respect to their views. In my post Keeping the Faith there are 249 comments as of this writing. Much of it has been a back and forth between Rabbi Bechhofer and those who challenge the traditional beliefs of Judaism: some from atheists; some from skeptics; some who do believe at some level but have decided that the events described in the Torah could not have happened since there is overwhelming evidence that they did not… and instead are allegorical.

I must admit that these issues have troubled me as well. I believe that some of them have simple answers; others have complex answers, and some have no apparent answers at all. But I also believe that the Torah is telling us the truth. How is that possible for a rationalist like myself? First because I do try to find rational explanations where-ever I can. But second is a reason that skeptics will probably not accept.

There is no one reason for me to hang my hat on. There is no definitive and clear proof that I can point to and say: this is it. None of the ‘proofs’ – stated by themselves are convincing. I am just as skeptical as… well frankly… the skeptics! I am by nature a skeptic.

But when one takes the totality of all the evidence and arguments in favor of the truth of Judaism which includes its long history of survival against all odds – my intuition takes over. I believe because my intuition compels me to do so. My rational nature which would normally succumb to all the evidence against Judaism succumbs instead to my intuitive senses.

(I am not going to go into detail about the evidence and the arguments. I have written several posts on that subject in the past. But they are mostly well known and there is no mystery about them. I am not trying to hide them or mislead. They are just not the point of this post and I don’t want to spend any time on those details.)

One may ask why all the evidence against the truth of Judaism doesn’t lead my intuition in the other direction. After all science doesn’t lie. Bible criticism makes a lot of sense. Archaeological finds makes things even more difficult… as does many other clear contradictions to our beliefs.

I believe because in every single case these contradictions have resolutions and questions have answers. Some are clear and some are only possible or even implausible. But in most cases they are at least possible. And in those cases where I can’t even see a possible answer – that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. I am therefore not forced to conclude that because of all the science and bible critics – that Judaism isn’t true. I have a choice to believe and my rationalist mind does not prevent me from using my intuitive mind.

Some might call this Emunah Peshuta – simple belief. Perhaps. But it is not blind belief. I am not a blind believer. However, I can understand why someone would call my belief in the truth of Judaism blind.

I suppose that at some point one does have to take that “leap of faith.” But it is not a blind leap. It is not a giant leap. It is an intuitive belief based on evaluating two conflicting sets of criteria, one that requires a conclusion based on the rational and difficult questions which do not seem to have satisfactory answers. The other is the totality of other perhaps unrelated evidence of Judaism’s truth. That evidence that does not necessarily address all the problems. Questions may remain – and they do for me. But at the same time it is hard to deny all the evidence in favor of Judaism. My own intuition impels me to believe rather than deny.

As I said – I realize that this will probably not satisfy the skeptics. They would probably refute every single piece of evidence that I would posit in favor of belief. But they cannot refute the totality of all that evidence. Nor can they successfully turn me into a skeptic.

Iran is expanding a “fifth column” in Canada. This warning, articulated by David Harris, former head of operations for the Canadian Intelligence Service and now a strategic intelligence expert, highlights some disturbing facts: many expatriates have been warning of the threat of Iranian diplomats conspiring in Canada; of the stealth workings of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, and there is evidence of Iranian infiltration in the school system.

Recent evidence bears out Harris’s warning, as does the news that Iran is using its embassy in Canada to mobilize loyalists of the Islamic Republic to infiltrate the Canadian Government and attack the United States.

The Toronto District school Board recently suspended the operating permit of an Islamic school that had been using teaching materials to encourage boys to keep fit for jihad and for disparaging Jews. Upon being exposed, the Islamic Shia Study Centre, which operated the East End Madrassah out of a Toronto high school, issued a public statement: ” Our curriculum is not intended to promote hatred towards any individual or group of people; rather, the children are taught to respect and value other faiths and beliefs, and to uphold Canada’s basic values of decency and tolerance”.

The school curriculum, however, referred to Jews as being: “crafty” and “treacherous,” with “plots” and “conspiracies,” while contrasting Islam to “the Jews and the Nazis.” These passages came from two books published by Iranian foundations, which also taught children about “unclean things,” including pigs, dogs and “a person who does not believe in Allah.”

So here one can see plainly the covert nature of how the Iranian “Fifth Column” manipulates diversity, multiculturalism, tolerance and even decency in a feeble attempt to cover up its agenda.

The York Region Police hate crimes unit launched an investigation, based on a complaint from Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

The cleric affiliated with the Islamic Shia Study Centre, Imam Moulana Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, tried to cover up the now-public scandal by stating that the passages were wrongly copied from two websites; however further investigation revealed that the passages were excerpts from two books published by the Al Balagh Foundation in Tehran, as well as by the Mostazafan Foundation of New York, which the FBI indicated was a front organization controlled by the Iranian regime, currently the leading sponsor of worldwide terrorism, and the president of which, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, is not only outspokenly anti-West, but prominently threatens to wipe Israel off the map.

This material understandably alarmed Jewish groups, who responded that they were dismayed that such material had made its way into the Toronto District School Board. Such textbooks have also made their way into the Ottawa Carlton Public School Board, where Iranian hate literature glorifies a 13-year old child soldier who, under an Iraqi tank during the Iran-Iraq war, strapped on a grenade and blew himself up. In addition, it depicts Jews as the “sons of Apes.”

Moulana Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, the Imam affiliated with the Toronto Madrasah, is also the Imam of the Islamic Shia Ithna Asheri Jamaat of Toronto; he recently participated at Carleton University in Ottawa as a speaker in the 2012 Imam Khomeini Conference, entitled, “The Contemporary Awakening and Imam Khomeini’s Thoughts.”

Although presented as an Iranian cultural event, Carleton drew a sharp letter of rebuke from ten Iranian-Canadian academics for hosting a conference honoring the “founding dictator of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The signatories of the letter pointed out that Khomeini had ordered in a fatwa the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988; that he had shut down Iranian Universities for two years, and that he had ordered the imprisonment, torture and the execution of dissidents.

The pro-Khomeini conference was jointly organized by the Iranian embassy in Ottawa and the student group, the Iranian Cultural Association of Carleton University, headed by Ehsan Mohammadi, the son of Hamid Mohammadi, the cultural counselor at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa.

An alarming article just released by Fox News revealed that Iran is using its embassy in Canada to mobilize Islamic Republic loyalists to infiltrate the Canadian Government and attack the United States, as can be seen in a chilling interview with Hamid Mohammadi and shown on an Iran-based website. In his interview, Mohammadi speaks of Iran’s plan to win the hearts and minds of Iranians living in Canada. He projects that by 2031, the total immigrant population of Canada will grow by 64%, and that, due to their birthrate, the number of Iranians should substantially increase.

This article was first published here.

Yasir Arafat is still dead. True, he was once alive. I sat across from him in his Gaza office, for example. And he even had a copy of my history of the PLO on his book shelf so he must have been of sound mind at the time.  It’s not my fault. I told him to start jogging and cut down on sweets.But he didn’t listen. On November 4, 2004, he died, a fate he previously delivered to thousands of far more innocent people.

The effort now by various Palestinian factions to imply Israel killed him is the funniest thing in the Middle East since the CIA director’s congressional briefing when he said the Muslim Brotherhood was a secular democratic organization. What’s dismaying is how much play Western media are giving this charge as if it should be taken seriously. When the West behaves in this way it signals at the least a dangerously naive credulousness and amnesia; at worst, it signals a profound anti-Jewish and anti-Israel complex on their part.

But there’s something else in this story, something very chilling indeed. Revolutionary Islamists especially, but many Muslims otherwise, believe that Jews tried to murder Muhammad, the founder of Islam, and even if they failed that the poison shortened his life. The accusation that Jews are the murderer of prophets–with Muslims throwing in the founder of Christianity also–is a phrase that derives from this story. It is frequently heard from Hamas and others. This is a blood libel, an alleged crime that then leads to the view that Jews are absolutely evil and should be wiped out. In short, it is a rationale for genocide. When Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Muslim Brotherhood say that Israel should be wiped off the map and Jews generally should be murdered that incitement is the inevitable consequence of this line of thinking.

That Western observers are unaware of all of this history, and repeated every day in inciteful sermons found often in Middle East mosques, is quite evident. Such a lack of knowledge leads them to believe that the conflicts they say are easily resolvable, quickly settled by more Israeli concessions or still continuing because of Israeli actions when the causes are much deeper and the solutions far more remote. Western societies today are obsessed with searching everywhere for racism and hate speech. Well, the idea that the Jews murdered Arafat (rather than that Arafat spent most of his career murdering Jews) falls into that category.

As for the specific claims in the Arafat case, they are easily disposed of:

First of all, anyone who saw Arafat during the last year of his life knew he was seriously ill and steadily worsening. His lips trembled, he looked disoriented, and he wasn’t as articulate as usual.  Even on television you couldn’t possibly miss his distress.

His doctors obviously knew that he was in bad shape. But, and this is what’s most important, they didn’t do anything about it. The prospect of Arafat’s death was so traumatic for the movement—which had known no other leader during 43 years for Fatah, 36 years for the PLO, and its entire ten year life for the Palestinian Authority. By not taking serious action and giving him better treatment, the key to the mystery is this: His own doctors and movement killed Arafat. So if Israel killed Arafat then his own doctors and the entire PLO, Fatah, and PA leadership were in on the conspiracy. Indeed, Arafat himself, by not more actively seeking medical help or speaking about his problems was also in on the conspiracy. This is unlikely.

Second, the doctors were shut up and the report of his death was kept secret by Arafat’s widow Suha Arafat. Since his colleagues had access to a lot of this information they also kept quiet. In other words, we are supposed to believe that those who in the world who most hated Israel had evidence that Israel had something to do with his death but they kept it secret?

Third, suddenly, almost eight years later Suha and other Arafat loyalists are making claims. But there is no new evidence whatsoever. Obviously, this is a publicity stunt. Let them release the huge medical report on his death. Let them permit the French doctors to have a press conference. Let them dig up Arafat. Until one of those things happens why should the Western media fall for this trick? So again, if there was the slightest suspicion that Arafat was being murdered, Arafat’s wife, doctors, and all of the Palestinian leadership were helping the conspiracy. This is also unlikely.

A couple in their late 40′s were detained on Sunday in Jerusalem on suspicion of the husband’s involvement with vandalizing Arab property six months ago, Honenu reports. Eyewitnesses say that police conducted themselves violently. The couple was taken to the Moriah Police Station where they were interrogated.

Sunday afternoon R. and his wife S. received a telephone call from a neighbor who told them that three “thugs” in civilian clothes had banged on their door.

"Thugs" in civilian clothes

R., 49, is a kashrut supervisor, and his wife S. is head nurse at a Jerusalem hospital.

Later in the afternoon, when the couple returned home, the three men were still there and approached them. The men asked the husband for his name and he replied that they should identify themselves first. After they presented police badges R. showed them his ID card.

After the three policemen informed R. that he was being detained, he and his wife asked them if they had an arrest warrant and what the charges were. The policemen showed them a folded piece of paper, claiming that it was a warrant, and added that they would be informed of the charges at the police station.

But the issue of a proper warrant became moot as S. noticed that the policemen were approaching her husband in a threatening manner. She tried to move closer to him in order to protect him and then, according to her, one of the policemen forcefully pushed her. Subsequently S. suffered injuries to her neck and to one of her fingers.

One of the policemen told his colleague to take out handcuffs and then the three jumped on R. and severely beat him, damaging one of the parked cars in the process. Afterwards they knocked R. to the ground and as they continued to beat him, handcuffed him. During the detention R. was badly injured in all parts of his body, including a broken nose, and his glasses were broken. After they finished arresting R. the policemen informed his wife that she was also being detained, because she had attacked them.

Beaten and cuffed, no warrant

S. relates that her husband did not resist the arrest in any way and certainly did not attack the policemen. The couple were taken to the Moriah Police Station in Jerusalem. After several hours of interrogation, S. was released. R. remained behind bars overnight. He was being interrogated on suspicion of involvement with “price tag” incidents involving damage to Arab property. The police did not have evidence but rather relied on “intelligence information”.

On Monday R. was brought to a deliberation at the Jerusalem Magistrate Court. The police demanded a four day remand extension. Honenu attorney David HaLevi, who represented R., pleaded at the deliberation that the detention was violent and unnecessary, and that the charges lacked evidence, and therefore R. should be released. The judge rejected the police demand of a remand extension but due to the “severity of the accusations” sent R. to 30 days house arrest.

Honenu attorney David HaLevi replied that, “This was a serious incident in which the police used unrestrained violence on my client for no visible reason. My client suffered from serious injuries including a broken nose due to the violence conduct of the police and that is a most unreasonable outcome of a detention, especially when the detainee is a normative adult with absolutely no criminal record who has never had any dealings with the law enforcement system.”

HaLevi added that the incident has been recorded and “we intend to file a strong complaint with the Police Investigation Unit in order that they examine the conduct of the police during the incident.”

He also said: “In our humble opinion the police are groping in the dark and the detention of my client was carried out without a basis of genuine evidence against him, and the [court's] decision to release him supports this.”