Settling the Land

In the past anti-semitism always focused on the denial of Jewish rights to practice their religion. As the Nation of Israel rose from the depths of destruction in Europe and Arab Lands to once again establish a "Kingdom" in the Land of Israel, anti-semitism switched from the out of fashion attach on Jewish religion to an attack on Jewish rights to settle and live in the Land of their forefathers.

Since the nations of the world fear a renewed Kingdom of Israel, their desire to impress a "solution" on the conflict between Israel and the Arabs has reached a much more critical level. By using the "Palestinians" as a tool to create an "false occupation" they have succeeded in making Israel into a colonizing nation.

But the People of Israel are not colonizers, they are returning to their birthright. This birthright is the same birthright that the ancestors of the Western World, the Romans succeeded in taking away from the Jewish people almost 2000 years ago.

The Western World seems focused on righting historic wrongs they feel they have perpetrated, yet when it comes to the Land of Israel, they have been quick to rewrite history, painting Israel as the foreign colonists.

The Solution

There really is only one solution and that is to settle the Land of Israel without embarrassment. The anti-semitism today is couched in terms like "human rights violations," "occupation," and "apartheid." These terms seek to disconnect the Jewish people's biblical, religious, and historic right to the Land of Israel. This is the scourge of anti-semitism that must be battled head on.

Malchut Beit Yosef

The current Israeli State represents the first imprint of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel in close to two thousand years. Yet, how is can it be explained that a group of Jews rebellious to Torah, found success in reclaiming the Land of their ancestors. The state now hold the most Jews out of any place in the world and grows stronger with each passing year. This troubles many religious Jews philosophically, because many leaders in Israel, at least in the early years appeared openly "anti-religious." This is in fact the nature of Malchut Beit Yosef. Yosef appeared to his brothers as an Egyptian and it was his descendants who became the kings of the Northern kingdom of Israel and appeared to openly rebel against the G-d. Yet appearances can be deceiving and although Achav the idol worshiping king of Northern Israel, a descendant of Yosef through the tribe of Efraim killed countless prophets and chased after Eliyahu, he still made into Gan Aden. Why? More interesting is that his army won every battle. Why? The answer pointed out by the sages is that he did not allow loshon hara to be spoken in his kingdom because the unity of Israel was of the utmost importance to him.

Rav Kook points out that the beginning of the State resembles many aspects of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and not Yehuda. He says that this is a necessary stage in our redemption, because exile forced us to live without the notion of the Nation as a whole. The founders of the State were drawn to an extreme notion of the necessity of Nation instead of religion, yet taking Rav Kook's point of view into consideration, we can understand why this was so. By first resurrecting Malchut Beit Yosef HaShem is establishing the physical apparatus that will make way for the merger of the Kingdom of Yehuda (Torah and spirituality), thus representing a united kingdom once again, which can only be ruled by Beit David.

May it be so!

Redemption Code

There has been an ongoing debate for quite sometime as to what the nature of the prophecies regarding the end of days are. Throughout the long exile of our nation Israel, it seemed as if these prophecies told of a future that we needed to wait and yearn for. Yet Torah and all of TaNach for that matter is more about implementation rather than waiting for events to unfold. This is very logical, since how can events unfold in our world other than through self implementation.

This is in fact the difference between the Nation of Israel before the Zionist movement and after the Zionist movement. With all of its flaws, Zionism got the Nation of Israel moving again. Masses of Jews moved from places around the world and are still moving from places they have been for centuries to their ancient homeland. Even more than coming home, Zionism as a movement formed the ideological backdrop to the third commonwealth of Israel in its ancient homeland. Sovereignty in our homeland, the Land of Israel is about not being passive anymore. Instead of allowing events to shape us, we can determine how to best shape the events around us. We don't always get it right, but the potential is now there and that ultimately is the difference between exile and redemption. Exile is the passive acceptance of world events...good or bad and redemption is the revelation of our nation's inner G-dly strength to shape our destiny. After all, this is the meaning of Yom Hatzmaut, the day when the Nation of G-d began to have the potential to implement the will of the Creator again and ultimately make the vision of the prophets a reality.