I confess.

As a Reserve IDF soldier, I may have been guilty of not defending my country. “Come and arrest me, Benny Gantz,” but I feel safe that at the age of 69, I will be ignored.

The incident occurred 23 years ago, during the “First” Intifada, a misnomer for the 27-year terrorist campaign launched by Yasser Arafat and another chapter in the century-old anti-Zionist war.

I was escorting a tourist bus on the hilly curves of Beit Jala, a village that is part of the Bethlehem region.

The Intifada had reached the stage of massive rock-throwing and firebombings of army and civilian vehicles.

The IDF really was prepared to fight armies but not rock throwers. How do you defend citizens against rock-throwers, many of them children?

The military’s R & D geniuses came up with the “Hatzatzit” (gravel maker), a tank-like machine that ground up rocks and, in  an “eye-for-an-eye” fashion, sprayed protesters with pebbles.

They were used against large-scale demonstrations but were not available for every rock-throwing incident in Judea and Samaria.

Rocks are the same as bullets in that they are projectiles that can kill, but when you shoot an M-16 rifle, you are almost certain of scaring the daylights out of someone several hundred feet away, or injuring, if not killing him. It is not a hunting rifle, it is used to defend civilians and soldiers from being killed.

Thrown rocks can be deadly, as we know too well. Many Jewish babies and adults have been killed by the impact of a rock through a car windshield, or by a fatal crash caused by a hurdled rock.

That is the ultimate goal of the rock-throwers nowadays. But in 1990, it was more of a symbol of defiance and a challenge to soldiers. The Arabs had stones. The soldiers had guns. That was not seen as a fair fight, but it’s never a fair fight when a Jew wins.

And how about an eight-year-old who back then had no intention to kill.

I remember when I was eight years old, on a snowy day in Baltimore. Our next-door neighbor’s grandson, a neighborhood mischief-maker, led the charge to pelt passing cars with snowballs. I wanted to be accepted by my buddies, so I joined in.

Bam! I hit a guy’s side window head-on. Bull’s-eye. I was exhilarated. I showed my “friends” I could do it.

I was less exhilarated when the driver slammed the brakes and  angrily burst out of the car to chase after us.

He didn’t call the police. Worse than that, we got a nasty response from our parents.

There is no comparison between my childhood incident and the Arab hatred of Jews. After all, I did not hate the driver. But you could compare my pelting a snow ball with the rocks pelted by one eight-year-old Arab, 20-some years ago. The Arabs had not yet educated their small children to murder Jews. They only encouraged them to harass Jews.

That’s what they did when I was escorting that tourist bus.

I was toting an M-16 semi-automatic. My cartridge had one rubber bullet. That was all the ammunition I was allowed to use on stone-throwers. After that first bullet, the others were live. A rubber bullet can kill but usually does not. A live bullet usually kills or injures, unless you’re a bad shot.

As usual, without warning, a rock smashed into a side window of the bus.

The driver stopped, and I rushed out, with my rifle aiming in the air. I saw an eight-year-old running away, his back to me.

I raised my weapon and aimed.

Twenty years later, our son was a combat soldier in the Golani Brigade. If it were him in my place, I would have said: “Shoot him. Kill him. If you don’t get rid of him now, the blood of ‘who knows many Jews’ will be on your hands in 20 years when he becomes a full-grown terrorist. My son, this Is Israel and not the diaspora. Pull the trigger.”

I aimed the rifle at the fleeing boy’s head.

Twenty-two years later, my second son was serving in a Tank Brigade. If he had been in Beit Jala, would I have told him: “My son, don’t do it. How can you shoot an eight-year-old in the back? So he threw a rock. So what? Remember the snowball I threw?”

“I am Hashem your G-d Who took you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2).

Values always come on a ladder. They have no significance if they are not set out in the proper order of preference; what is more important, what comes first, is the foundation for all the rest.

The first commandment of the Ten Commandments is the starting point and the foundation for the entire structure of values that follows. There is a G-d who redeemed us from slavery. We serve Him and Him only. Throughout history, despots who desired to rule the entire world have found themselves in serious conflict with the Nation of Israel. From Pharaoh to Ahashverosh, from Hitler to Stalin – these despots concluded that they must destroy the Jews simply because the Jews cannot be enslaved: They already have a King, “I am Hashem, your G-d.”

Many values are held aloft in our world: Equality, liberty, liberalism and more. They are all fine and good. But usually, they are not founded on the first of the Ten Commandments. “My Nile River is mine and I created myself,” said Pharaoh according to the Midrash, just one example of a king who thought he was a god. The more that a leader puts himself at the focal point, the more he diminishes G-d and attempts to “replace” Him, the more that slavery takes root until the entire state becomes one large concentration camp: a “house of bondage.”

The danger of enslavement has greatly increased in modern times. The state’s ability to control and revoke its citizen’s liberty is very enticing to a regime that has no G-d. The excuse will always – always – be security. “We must revoke your liberty so that we can protect you.”

Do we really need to be biometrically marked like animals just to counter the plague of forged identity cards? Is there no technological solution better than a simple photograph that can easily be removed and replaced? Of course there is. Smart chips are already in place in all sorts of identity cards, and they are extremely difficult to forge. But the prime motivation for the Orwellian biometric law is the abrogation of liberty; to entice us all into a house of bondage – in the name of security, of course.

Wherever G-d has been completely removed from the picture – in atheist or communist regimes – human life and honor have no value at all. In China they raise people in locked farms so that they can sell their organs for transplants or horror shows, like the one that recently featured in Israel.

So when you hear someone talking about lofty values, be sure to check his entire message. Who is his G-d? Who works for whom? Does he work for G-d, or vice versa?

Editor’s Note: The following sermon was delivered by Rabbi Lamm on October 15, 1960. What’s truly astonishing is how relevant his remarks remain more than 52 years later; indeed, had we not just noted the date on which the speech originally was given, readers likely would have assumed it to be of very recent vintage.

This and 34 other lectures and speeches given by Rabbi Lamm between 1952 and 1976, while he served as a congregational rabbi in New York and Massachusetts, appear in a new anthology, “Drashot Ledorot: A Commentary for the Ages,” published by Maggid, a division of Koren.

The concept of man’s creation betzelem Elokim, in the image of God, is one of the most sublime ideas that man possesses, and is decisive in the Jewish concept of man.

What does it mean when we say that man was created in the image of God?

Varying interpretations have been offered, each reflecting the general ideological orientation of the interpreter.

The philosophers of Judaism, the fathers of our rationalist tradition, maintain that the image of God is expressed, in man, by his intellect.

Thus, Saadia Gaon and Maimonides maintain that sechel, reason, which separates man from animal, is the element of uniqueness that is in essence a divine quality. The intellectual function is thus what characterizes man as tzelem Elokim.

However, the ethical tradition of Judaism does not agree with that interpretation.

Thus, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, in his Mesilat Yesharim, does not accept reason as the essence of the divine image. A man can, by exercise of his intellect, know what is good but fail to act upon it. Also, the restriction of tzelem Elokim to reason means that only geniuses can truly qualify as being created in the image of God.

Hence, Luzzatto offers an alternative and perhaps more profound definition. The tzelem Elokim in which man was created is that of ratzon – the freedom of will. The fact that man has a choice between good and evil, between right and wrong, between obedience and disobedience to God, is what expresses the image of God in which he was born. An animal has no freedom to act; a man does. That ethical freedom makes man unique in the creation.

But how does the freedom of the human will express itself? A man does not assert his freedom by merely saying “yes” to all that is presented to him. Each of us finds himself born into a society which is far from perfect. We are all born with a set of animal drives, instincts, and intuitions. If we merely nod our heads in assent to all those forces which seem more powerful than us, then we are merely being passive, plastic, and devoid of personality. We are then not being free, and we are not executing our divine right of choice.

* * * * *

Freedom, the image of God, is expressed in the word “no.” When we negate that which is indecent, evil, ungodly; when we have the courage, the power, and the might to rise and announce with resolve that we shall not submit to the pressures to conform to that which is cheap, that which is evil, that which is indecent and immoral – then we are being free men and responding to the inner divine image in which we are created.

The late Rabbi Aaron Levine, the renowned Reszher Rav, interpreted, in this manner, the famous verse from Ecclesiastes (3:19) which we recite every morning as part of our preliminary prayers. Solomon tells us, “Umotar haadam min habehema ayin,” which is usually translated as “And the preeminence of man over beast is naught.”

Rabbi Levine, however, prefers to give the verse an interpretation other than the pessimistic, gloomy apparent meaning. He says: “And the preeminence of man over beast is ayin, ‘no.’ ”

What is it that gives man his distinction? What is it that makes man different from the rest of creation, superior to the rest of the natural world? It is his capacity to say ayin, his capacity to face the world and announce that he will not submit to it, that he will accept the challenge and respond “no.”

I was recently asked whether it is permitted to pray for one’s team to win the Super Bowl.

One could argue that God has better things to worry about than who scores more touchdowns in a game that won’t make the world a better place or bring peace to the Middle East. Is it appropriate for players like Tim Tebow to make grand gestures of prayer to a Master of the World Who has His Hands full dealing with things that are much more important, like whether people who are out of work will find a way to make their mortgage payments?

I would submit that God is very interested in who wins the Super Bowl. And the World Series. And my mother-in-law’s mah-jongg game.

On Rosh Hashanah the entire world stands in judgment as God determines the health and wealth of every individual. How successful we will be depends upon that Divine decision.

I pray to God for success whenever I perform a bris. Teachers and plumbers and electricians should pray for guidance in their respective careers. So why shouldn’t quarterbacks, pitchers, and batters pray for touchdown passes, no-hitters, and grand slams?

Since God oversees the financial well-being of every human, it appears to me He would be quite interested in determining the incomes of athletes, team owners, beer concessions, advertisers, and t-shirt sellers. All these business people with so much on the line would certainly be justified in praying for a Super Bowl that goes their way.

There is, however, a totally different factor that disturbs me.

Why is this so important? Should it really make that much of a difference to us which multimillionaire becomes a bigger multimillionaire than the other?

In one of the many games in which my beloved Red Sox fell to the hated Yankees, a friend of mine was bragging about how “we beat you.” “We”? “You”? I didn’t realize the two of us had suited up for the big game!

It is amazing how people come to identify with their sports teams to such an extent that it leads to insults and fights. A friend of mine drives around New York with a vanity license plate that identifies him as a fan of a team that New Yorkers love to hate. He has been subjected to obscene gestures, vandalism, and even pullovers by New York cops.

And how about Bryan Stow, who was beaten into a coma on opening day at Dodger Stadium because he had the audacity to root for the San Francisco Giants?

And who exactly are these heroes who generate so much pride when we see them win? Mark McGuire? I took my son to Shea Stadium to see him smash two home runs, and then went to someone’s house (we don’t own a TV) to watch him break Roger Maris’s record. I could have saved time and money by watching a syringe of steroids. That’s what was really hitting all those home runs.

Lance Armstrong? I used to admire him. He was a role model who could teach us all about hard work. And resilience. And overcoming adversity. Or so we thought. Oh, he’s a role model all right. Of lying. And cheating. And feigning righteous indignation while destroying the lives and reputations of those who tried to tell the truth.

Tiger Woods? Plaxico Burress? Mike Tyson? O.J. Simpson?

This Shabbos we will read the Ten Commandments. We may not, says God, “have any other gods before [Him].” Not only are we prohibited from worshipping idols, we’re not even permitted to own them. God tells us why: “Because I…am a jealous God.”

What is God jealous of? It’s not as if statues and trinkets are any competition to Him. What is He worried about?

Idol worship is called avodah zarah – strange service. There is a mitzvah to emulate God; to walk in His ways. We can’t emulate Him when we set up virtual shrines to strangers who are far from Godly.

Avodah zarah comes in many forms. Some people still bow down to the sun, the moon, and the stars. But there are other avodah zarahs. For some, it’s a career so all-encompassing that its pursuit shuts out all connection to family and integrity. For others, it’s being glued to the almighty television or Internet. And for still others, it’s being so enamored of a bunch of athletes in one’s favorite uniform that they forget all propriety and decency.

I know he was trying to be comforting, but President Obama’s comments at Sandy Hook about God perpetuates the myth that we humans ought to always see God in the role of comforter. God is supposed to be our protector and, Biblically, we’re supposed to challenge God in the face of suffering rather than believe that innocent people dying is somehow His will.

After reading the first names of all the twenty children who were murdered, here is what President Obama said:

God has called them all home… May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in His heavenly place.  May He grace those we still have with His holy comfort.  And may He bless and watch over this community, and the United States of America. 

Called them home? What? Their home is with their parents in Connecticut, not at the divine throne in heaven.

“His holy comfort”? Who wants that? We want these kids alive and well, not in some substitute comfort.

May God “bless and watch over this community.” Wait a second. Was he watching when Adam Lanza shot each of these children multiple times? And if He was, which I, as a religious man firmly believe, then why didn’t He stop it?

Obviously, this isn’t about President Obama. It’s about a prevalent and fraudulent belief in world religion, captured in the President’s otherwise moving speech, that when tragedy strikes our first impulse should be to defend God rather than rail and thunder against the injustice of it all. God’s first role is not supposed to be as our consoler-in-chief. Rather, He’s supposed to be our foremost guardian. If He could split the Red Sea than He can stop a ‪.223-caliber Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle’s bullets. If He could bring down the walls of Jericho then He could have made the walls of the Sandy Hook school impregnable to monsters. And if he could revive the dead with Elisha, then He could preserve the life of these small children.

Why God is silent and seemingly absent in the face of so much suffering is the real question about the Sandy Hook massacre. These kids were innocent. Does God not promise to protect the innocent? The Lord will protect you from 
all evil; 
He will keep your soul (Psalm 121). These kids were vulnerable. Does God not promise to guard the defenseless? The Lord is the keeper of little ones: I was humbled, and he delivered me (Psalm 116:6). These kids deserved long lives. Does God not promise to safeguard humanity? I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings (Psalms 61:4).

Judaism gave rise to the defiant man of faith, the man who, like Jacob, spars with angels and defeats them. The Jew is a child of Abraham who went so far as to accuse God of injustice when the Almighty sought to the destruction of both the righteous and the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah at the same time. The Jew is the disciple of Moses, who thundered to God that he wished his name to be taken out of God’s holy Torah if the Creator would proceed with His stated intention of wiping out the Jewish nation after the sin of the Golden Calf. The Jew is like King David, who declares in the Psalms, I shall not die for I shall live. The Jew has achieved immortality through an impudent insubordination in the face of historical inevitability, daring to defy fate and forge an audacious destiny.

Our role in life should not be to offer empty platitudes in the face of suffering, about how the murdered children are in heaven. Rather, we have a right to demand from God that He abide by the same values and rules that He commanded us to uphold. Through Moses, He commanded us to always choose life. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live (Duet. 30:19). Must God not also choose life? Are we human beings just so much cosmic chaff that when our children are slaughtered? Are we meant just to bow our heads in silent submission?

No. The role of religion is not to make us compliant. Rather, faith galvanizes us to make the world a better place. That means fighting evil and protecting life. It means building hospitals and developing medicines. And it also means demanding of God that He show Himself in history and help us to make the world a safer place.

We can’t stop every monster-psycho like Adam Lanza. But He can. And spare me the arguments that say if God were to stop evil we would not have any freedom of choice. When Adam Lanza grabbed his mother’s guns and started over to the Sandy Hook school, he could easily have been hit by a bus and none would have been the wiser. It would not have compromised anyone’s freedom of choice.

Challenging God in the face of suffering is not blasphemous. Rather, it is deeply religious and the ultimate sign of faith. It means we believe that God controls the world, controls human fate, controls the world’s destiny, and has it in His unlimited power to make the world a happier place.

President Obama is an eloquent speaker. But rather than let God off the hook, in the face of tragedy, I would rather hear him say, “Lord, we Americans are a righteous people. We spend endless blood and treasure around the world to untie the hands of the oppressed, to protect the rights of women, and to safeguard children from terrorists. We give huge amounts of charity and Synagogues, Churches, and Mosques. We have Your holy name printed even on our money, and we have a national day of Thanksgiving to show our gratitude for Your bounty. We deserve better than to see twenty tiny, precious souls slaughtered so brutally. In the name of all that is righteous, and as the Chief Magistrate of this great nation, I ask You, I implore You, I demand of You, to protect our children, Your children, from harm, so that all the peoples of the world will see Your great hand in history and how the innocent are allowed to flourish, prosper, and grow old with children of their own.”

Our Sages teach that when Chanukah comes around, we are to thank Hashem, not only for the miracles that He performed for us in Israel long ago, but also for the miracles which He performs for us today. So, with your permission, I want to take this opportunity to thank Hashem for all of the uncountable miracles He has done for me and for the Jewish people in our time. Here are but a few.

First of all, thank you, Abba, for my life. After all, life is a miracle too. Some people think that life is coming to them, that it is some kind of automatic gift, that it’s theirs and theirs alone, and no thanks are needed. But, in truth, every second of life is a miracle. We don’t empower ourselves. Every breath, every heartbeat, is a gift from God. Seeing is a miracle. Hearing is a miracle. Put an eye on a table and it won’t see a thing. Without God’s gift of our souls, our eyes couldn’t see, our ears couldn’t hear, and we wouldn’t be able to think or walk or talk at all. It’s all a miracle! So thank you Abba for the miracle of life.

Thank you, Abba, for letting me know You are there. For almost 30 years, I didn’t know. I went about like a zombie without paying any attention. Then after I searched and searched for the Truth of life, trying everything there was to try, and doing everything there was to do, You revealed Yourself to me on a beach in California, and let me know that You are everything, hiding behind the movie set of this world, the Director of Directors.

Thank you, Abba, for the miracle of letting me realize that the Torah is true. So many people don’t realize it, especially in Hollywood where I was living when You came into my life. And thank you for opening my eyes to understand that its teachings are eternal and apply to our times as well, like a living Constitution for our lives, in each and every detail.

Thank you, Abba, for the miracle of understanding that a Jew is supposed to live in the Land of the Jews, our special Holy Land, the Land that you bequeathed to our Forefathers and all the Jewish People for all time, and not live in foreign gentile lands, with foreign languages and foreign customs, trying our hardest to be like everyone else instead of being our own proud and holy Israelite Nation in our Biblical Homeland. Why is this a miracle? Because so many of our brethren live in darkness, not understanding this great commandment of the Torah, and feeling perfectly content to live in other people’s lands, tragically missing out living the very heart and goal of the Torah, the establishment of Your holy Torah Kingdom in the Land of Israel.

Thank you, Abba, for the miracle of Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel, and for the miraculous opportunity of returning to our Land after 2000 years of wandering and suffering in alien lands, lands of persecution and assimilation that have devoured the remnants of our People, leaving us so small in number, and now, You have miraculously answered 2000 years of yearning and prayers to return to Zion.

And, thank you, Abba, not only for the miracle of our own Jewish State, but also for the miracle of realizing how much I must thank you for it, for tragically there are many who have been blinded by the darkness of exile, and they don’t see the great light, and the great obligation to thank you for this incredible miracle and kindness.

And, thank you, Abba, for putting in my heart the flame to come to Israel, and the courage to leave everything behind, family, country of birth, a successful career, sports car, famous friends, the possibility of seeing my face on People Magazine and Good Morning America.

Thank you for the miracle of health, for healing me of a chronic illness in a miraculous fashion, without medicine or surgical intervention in answer to my fervent prayers, after I threw my cortisone pills into the Pacific Ocean and relied on Your salvation alone.

Thank you for the miracle of allowing me to use the talents You gave me in the service of Am Yisrael, to help spread the truth of Your Torah, and the importance of living a holy life in Israel, as it says over and over again in the Torah itself, in the words of our Prophets, and in the teachings of our great holy Sages.

Thank you, Abba, for the miracle of my Jewish wife and Jewish children, and from having watched over me all those dark years in America when I could have married a non-Jew, and lost all connection to You completely.

Thank you, Abba, for the miracle that my children grow up speaking Hebrew, and not some foreign gentile language, and for the miracle of their growing up in their own Jewish Land, proud Israeli Jews, without mixed-up dual identities, thinking they belong to some foreign nation, when we are really the Children of Israel, and not Egyptians, or Babylonians, or Romans, or Germans, or proud Americans waving the Stars and Stripes on the Fourth of July and thinking that George Washington was our founding father.

Thank you, Abba, for providing us with the Israel Defense Forces, and all of our victories over our enemies today, like in the days of the Maccabees, and for letting me understand the supreme mitzvah of serving in our army, and for allowing me to recognize the miracles you have done for us in our wars, not like those who think it was our military power alone that saved us, or those who foolishly claim that prayer and Torah are all that we need, and who don’t want to admit that their throats would be slit by the bloodthirsty hordes of Ishmaelites who would pounce on Mea Shaarim in five minutes if not for the brave holy soldiers of Tzahal.

Thank you, Abba, for all of your miracles, those that I recognize and those that I don’t, those that You do for me and my family, and those you do for all Clal Yisrael.

May the day come soon when I will merit to witness the greatest miracle of all – when the Jews of America will open their eyes and see the emptiness of Jewish life in a foreign gentile land now that You have renewed true Jewish life in the Land of Israel.

Amen!

In the Torah portions during Chanukah, we always read about Yosef, or Joseph, as he is known on Broadway. Yosef is called “Yosef HaTzaddik,” meaning the Righteous One. The Holy Zohar teaches that Yosef earned the esteemed title of Tzaddik because he guarded the Covenant of sexual purity. This is what brought him to kingship over the world.

“Rabbi Shimon said, ‘It was only after Yosef withstood the test of temptation with Potifar’s wife that he was called Tzaddik. Since he guarded the holy Brit, he was called Tzaddik’” (Zohar,Bereshit 194b).

The Midrash says that Potifar’s wife wasEgypt’s most beautiful woman. Day after day, dressed in immodest outfits, she would approach the young Hebrew slave and beckon him to her quarters. She would whisper seductive things in his ear. Yosef’s test wasn’t just a one time thing. She kept after him for months on end, doing everything in her powers to cast her spell over him. On that fateful day when she threw herself at him with all of her charms, she made sure that no one else was in the house. The only thing standing between Yosef and the forbidden act was his fear of God. His father and family were hundreds of miles away, he was in the prime of his strength, she was the most beautiful and seductive woman inEgypt, and still he resisted.

In praising Yosef’s achievement, the Zohar emphasizes that guarding the Covenant of sexual holiness is like observing all of the Torah, “guarding the Brit is equal in weight with the whole Torah” (Zohar, Bereshit 197a).

In our time, each of us is tempted every day with the very same test when we sit down at the computer. Thousands of seductive women are just a quick click away. Today, the Internet is Potifar’s wife.

We who don’t have same exalted the fear of God that Yosef had, where will we summon the strength to overcome the temptation? For us, Divine assistance comes in the form of an anti-smut filter. Thank God, there are many on the market. Many can be downloaded for free. So grave is the danger of Internet watching that Torah authorities have ruled that Internet surfing without a safe filter is a violation of the Torah commandment, “Thou shall not put a stumbling block in front of a blind man.”

Erotic pictures on the Internet, whether they be in ads, in fashion pages, or in adult sites, cause a person to violate a long list of Torah commandments, including:

* “You shall be holy, for I the L-rd your G-d am holy!”

* “Thou shall not turn astray after your hearts and after your eyes which lead you astray.”

* “Therefore shall your camp be holy, that He see no unclean thing in you and turn away from you.”

* “And you shall guard yourself from every evil thing.”

* “Do not turn astray after their gods!”

* “You shall not walk in the customs of the gentile.”

* “Thou shall not bring an abomination into your house.”

Recognizing the terrible danger of unsupervised Internet viewing has extra significance now, at the time of Chanukah. The article, “The Secrets of Chanukah,” posted on my www.jewishsexuality.com website, explains how it was precisely the Covenant of sexual holiness of the Jewish People that the Greeks sought to pollute. The Covenant between the Nation of Israel and God is sealed on our bodies, by the brit milah, emphasizing that God also has dominion over this part of our lives. The hedonist Hellenist culture sought to stamp out this holiness and give sensuality and bodily pleasure free reign. Instead of covering the modesty of the body, they celebrated its total exposure, in their promiscuous culture, their bathhouses, bawdy cabarets, their art, and their nude Olympics. Their goal was not to wipe out the Jewish People, but rather to wipe out our holy connection to God. And the method they chose to do this was to force us into adopting their immoral philosophies and ways. For, like the wicked Bilaam before them, they knew that the God of the Jewish People despises immorality. Their hedonist culture could not tolerate the existence of a competing Jewish culture that championed the holiness of life, so they set out to destroy our attachment to Torah. Therefore, they outlawed brit milah, and decreed that every Jewish virgin before her marriage be brought to the Greek ruler’s palace to be despoiled.

Hamas terror chief Khaled Mashaal openly arrived in Gaza on Friday, crossing through via Egypt.

Mashaal was met by representatives of both Hamas and Fatah.

Mashaal will be staying in Gaza for 3 days.

In 1997, Netanyahu nearly succeeded in killing Mashaal in retaliation for all the Hamas suicide bombings, but the Mossad operation in Jordan went sour, and Israel was forced to send an antidote.

Upon his arrival in Gaza, Mashaal said he wished for “God to give me martyrdom one day on this land.”