Friendly fire
The last two days, I’ve been pretty down.
It’s probably a whole bunch of things together, including trying to keep everything going and ‘upbeat’ so the wedding could get done, and not totally falling apart that first month after Simchat Torah.
But the ‘last straw’ seems to have been that terror attack that happened in Jerusalem on Thursday morning.
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I was shaken to my core by what happened when ‘one of our soldiers’ killed Yuval Castelman, a Jew from Mevasseret Zion, who got shot dead after ‘neutralising’ one of the Palestinian terrorists at the bus stop in Jerusalem on Thursday.
I am not going to go into all the details.
The Daniel Amram Telegram channel has a lot of information about it, and also did a Youtube interview pulling together the known information (and videos of what happened) HERE.
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The point is, Yuval Castelman was shot dead, when one of the soldiers mistook him for a terrorist.
‘Friendly fire’.
I have to say, this whole episode broke my heart.
And it showed me that all those people shouting that ‘more guns’ and ‘more violence’ is the answer…
They have been misleading us for years and years and years.
It’s all warped so-called ‘Torah’, teaching pure Jews that hatred and guns and violence is ‘the only answer’ to what is going on here.
And where’s God in this picture?
Nowhere.
It’s the ‘power and koach of my own hand’.
And nothing else.
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If we want this horrible situation to end, we have to finally understand that all the people – all the ‘Kahanists’, and others infected by Meir Kahane’s horrible, destructive, and hate-filled ‘push’ to get ‘every Jew with a 22’ – they have been misleading us for years, about what the real solution to our problems are.
‘Guns’ without real teshuva is only going to turn Israel into even more of the Wild West, where people feel totally justified in shooting others down.
I understand that situation here is very complicated.
I live here, after all.
My kids use that trempiada sometimes – like half of Jerusalem.
I live right next to a whole bunch of Palestinians here, and I spent a whole month saying tehillim every single day to try and ‘mitigate’ any urge they might have to walk up the road and start another pogrom, God forbid.
I am not a ‘bleeding heart leftie’.
At all.
What I am, is a person who has been arguing against the poisonous ideas of Meir Kahane (and his successors) with my children for a few years, already.
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It’s breaking my heart, to see Jews with payot talking so calmly about gunning people down on the street.
If someone is coming to kill us – we have to rise up and kill them first, of course we have to!
But we still have to do that with such sadness, that the job of destroying a human life has fallen to us.
It’s not a video game.
It’s not a joke.
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What happened in Jerusalem on Thursday – is the soldier who mistakenly shot Yuval Castelman still a ‘hero’?
When someone is down on the floor, and poses no further danger, is it a ‘mitzvah’ to carry on shooting that person, even if they are a terrorist?
(I don’t know the answers to these questions, BTW. It’s something only our biggest poskim, our biggest rabbis with real ruach hakodesh and a strong connection to Hashem could actually know how to answer.)
All I can tell you, is that we CANNOT rely on just guns and more violence to ‘solve this problem’.
God is showing us that more and more clearly with each day that passes.
Only real, sincere teshuva is going to get us out of the mess.
Only listening to our real Tzaddikim is going to get us out of this mess.
And until enough people get that message…. the Jewish death toll continues to rise with more precious souls killed every single day.
May Hashem avenge their blood.
And also, open enough people’s eyes to what is really going on here.
Yaakov’s main weapon has to be prayer and teshuva, not guns.
And it’s only the people who are really working to turn us all into the evil, murderous, God-less ‘Esav’ who disagree with that statement.
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UPDATE:
I know these topics are very fraught, and very emotional.
Pondering some more on it, the point I really want to make is that none of us should be blase about taking another human being’s life – not even if that person is the most despicable terrorist in the world.
Every single person is still made in the ‘image of God’, and when we adopt a ‘black and white’ approach to this, glorifying killing as though it’s nothing, just a matter of chalking up another ‘x’ on the M-16 – we are falling into the God-less attitude that ‘Esav’ has to other human beings.
This is a very narrow bridge to cross.
But God Himself grieved when the evil Egyptians were totally annihilated at the Red Sea.
And our job as Jews is to emulate God in this lowly world as much as possible – and not to glorify Rambo.
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One of the commentators put up something on the last post that R Kessin has apparently identified a category of human that is ‘sub human’.
This type of language makes my skin crawl, to be honest.
Everyone is still a human being, although clearly, not everyone acts like a human being.
Rebbe Nachman explains in Likutey Moharan (can anyone help me with the specific reference?) that when people lack da’at, i.e. they don’t have God in their lives and God isn’t part of their picture – they are like an animal on two legs.
But actually worse than an animal, in many ways.
This applies across the board to all ‘God-less’ people, regardless of their nationality or religion.
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A few days’ ago, I lit a 7 day memorial candle, for Yuval Castelman.
I put it next to the yahrtzeit candle we have all the time for Rebbe Nachman.
May Yuval’s death not be in vain.
And may the light and the wisdom and the real Torah of our true Tzaddikim reach every single one of us.
I agree with you totally. After the Simchat Torah massacre, the whole push for more guns has made me very nervous. As I mentioned here before, I was doing Shmirah for a while, but I have to tell you while I have always believed in gun rights, and people should decide if they want to own a gun, guns have always made me nervous and I never liked the idea of having one. When I did Shmirah, I used to daven to Hashem everyday that I would never had to use it. Living here in the Shomron, I always saw how people (religious Jews) over – valued guns, many times putting the gun before Hashem. Thinking that is what is going to protect them. Obviously we need to do our hishtadlut, as you say, it is a fine line, which is difficult. After the Simchat Torah massacre, I saw many so scared that they reached for their guns but seemed to forget Hashem. All instructions by the Rabbis on the Yishuv was if you have a gun bring it to Shul. Keep your phone or radio on etc… Yes many said Tehilliim, but the gun still was put forward as the Ikkar. I am not blaming them, living out here, many people have their own way of feeling secure, but in the national religious community, the gun has seemed to be over emphasized. I never once wore my gun to Shul during the week and on Shabbos, and being a Kohen, I especially feel it is wrong to do Birkat Kohanim ( a prayer of peace) while wearing an instrument of destruction. Frankly, if I had to give up my gun for any reason, I wouldn’t miss it much. I am also not a bleeding heart leftie, and don’t believe that the Kahanist ideology is the right one. I also agree with you, the Arabs like every other person is still created in an image of G-d, even when they can commit the most heinous acts.
My new son in law got his gun last Thursday – the day Yuval was shot dead.
I gave him a blessing he should never need to use it – the only reason he got it is to try and ‘protect’ other people.
But he’s also cognisant of the fact that taking a life is never a simple act, even when it’s 100% justified according to Torah.
hakol kol yaakov
rabeinu says mashiach will conquer the world without firing a single bullet.
It’s the behavior! You didn’t understand.
As I keep explaining here a billion times over, the Arabs are just the ‘stick’ in the hand of the Americans and Europeans, who are just the ‘puppets’ being played by the masons.
Look up the video of the American army helicopter pilots in Iraq who murdered a group of civilians in cold blood on the street, and then said ‘they deserved it’ for standing there.
Taking life callously – and then doing it again and again and again – is not just a problem the Arabs have.
“As I keep explaining here a billion times over, the Arabs are just the ‘stick’ in the hand of the Americans and Europeans, who are just the ‘puppets’ being played by the masons.”
And the ultimate holder of the stick is HaShem Himself.
I think a lot of the answer is how we’re dealing with justice as a nation. To have a just court system is one of the Seven Noahide Laws, which we are bound to just as the nations are. Clearly we’re not there, or else we wouldn’t have a governance that has mostly corrupt people sitting in the various parts of the system.
If we are to put people to death, they must be tried and found guilty in a manner that allows us to put them to death, and the manner of so doing. But we’re not supposed to enjoy that, either.
It doesn’t help that the highest courts in the world are corrupt, and help the evil organizations that take ordinary citizens minding their own business and kill them, enjoying the abuse they give them along the way.
Apparently it isn’t only the Americans who need the terrorists. For example, how many countries are represented in UNWomen? It would seem they need the terrorists too.
We need to know the way out of this, and then show the world how to leave the mess we’re in. No?
Yes, you are making some very wise observations.
There is a global ‘lack of justice’ going on – lack of Torah-true justice.
And that spiritual corruption is at the root of the problem.
I’m sad because of this article. Sad because of the information about the death of the tsadik who killed the Amalikites and saved Jewish lives . But Baruch Dayan HaEmet , and blessed be his gun also who was used to adore him with tremendous zechuyiot. But I’m sad from your attitude also because of the lashon hara against rabbi Meir Kahana. About rabbi Meir zichrono livrachah. He was assassinated because he paused a real threat for the establishment when he started to speak about Jewish autonomy in Yehudah and Shomron. He gave his life for the people of Israel. About the baaaaad “Kahanists” . Plenty good Jews there who love Hashem ,shomrei mitzvot , anticipate Malchut Shamaim. But the group is heavily infiltrated from agents and provocateurs with mission to divide and mislead . And as every where , there are some fanatics restricted in empty ideologies : nationalistic motivated ,or blind “followers” of THE tsadik………….not a big deal , because all of us we are considered “blind” till Hashem will spread His ruach and mochin of gadlut upon us.
People keep saying that ‘the problem’ with the Kahane-inspired ‘violent fanatics’ is that they are all agent provocateurs etc.
But if you read Meir Kahane’s writings, they are simply following his doctrines.
Maybe, you can explain how Kahane’s writings and teachings are actually being twisted by thee ‘agent provacateurs’?
Don’t forget there are some
‘violent fanatic” Breslovers as well . And agents are sent everywhere . In your group also. About the followers of rabbi Meir “doctrines”, hopefully we will see some “Shuvu Banim” to participate with Yiad l’achim or Lehavah giborim who risk their lives to liberate Jewish women and children trapped in Arab cities ,together with the baaaad “Kahanists”. Finally your sayings like ” if you read Meir Kahane writtings” ” Meir Kahane’s horrible, destructive, and hate-filled ‘push’ to”, ….. is the same as they say “cultist Berland plead guilty for sexual crimes”
Yeah, now you are showing your true colors.
The difference is, that last statement is made by people who work for the evil establishment, the totally corrupt media, and the spiritually ‘confused’ people who were dumb enough to believe it, without doing even a tiny bit of double-checking themselves.
Whereas, when you read Meir Kahane’s own writings, the hatred and arrogance literally drip off the page.
And of course, Kahane also worked for that self-same US deep state currently trying to destroy religious Jews in Israel.
I wonder who the first deep state-sponsored ‘agent provacateur’, subverting Jews away from God and into believing guns and violence was the only answer to our woes, actually was….
Rabbeinu alav haShalom, killed a goy to save a Jew . Yours ?
Are you saying that R Kahane killed someone himself, and if yes, please give details.
Do you see my true colors ! Realy ? Do a favor to yourself please. Tell to rav Berland what you wrote about the holy Sefer Yetsirah , how you slandered gdolei olam , rabbi Avraham Aboulafia, rabbi Sarug, chachmei Italia, the Maharal, rabbi Ariel Kaplan…”they practice demonic Kabbalah” according to you. You know , in your posts that you took down. Now you move your tongue again, against rabbi Kahane. Show to us his “hate”. PROVES and QUOTES from his books please, not your opinions. If you like, you can tell me what rav Berland will say to you ,if he will give you a special tikkun to do. Do it, and after maybe you will start to see some colors.
B”H
kavod harav, the ahavat yisrael of harav kahane z”l, his effort to liberate soviet jewry, and the horrible psy-ops run against him and the jdl by the fbi cointelpro, the vulnerabilities that he found and attemped to patch in the israeli declaration and basic laws, are all evidence that he was working at the edge, that his motivations and efforts accomplished good alongside with the controversy. i’m nowhere near learning the law of the zealot, it’s way too easy to make mistakes. i’m hoping that i can avoid situations where there is pressure to make mistakes.
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i stopped going to shul because of his ideology. that inviting non-jewish people to community centres leads to intermarriage and assimilation. because i like them. better to be a failed shabbos goy than to be kicked out of shul, or to inadvertently cause harm, all the more so when it’s not just the viruses in aerosolized small droplets from my larynx that are the problem, it’s my antisemitic ideas that were/are problematic. i’m still not sure if it’s a good idea to be back there, i’m happy sitting in a park nearby to do hitbodedus, and to be nearby.
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making correct decisions is vitally important. learning talmud, shulchan aruch, these kinds of correct decisions are more important to winning wars than the french tanks or jets, or whatever else. BeEzrat Hashem leh”i won the war of independence with at one point a few fugitives hiding out in an orange grove. BeEzrat Hashem david hamelekh with yehonatan ben shaul made hundreds flee. law is more important than materiel.
b’ahavas yisroel,
yossi
i’ve seen this video of collateral murder, at least one from the website whose front-man is in belmarsh, or was.
starting to appreciate the value in israeli restraint and being careful, gaza is one thing, this is in the middle of a jewish city, where most of the residents are friendly. i shouldn’t have watched it.
in my city, people are routinely put in a small locked room with a drain in the floor and no bucket. when they exhibit the correct symptoms, i. e. kicking or knocking the wall, or jumping and touching the ceiling, or hyperphonia on the telephone, violence is used, violence which is legal in canadian law.
in this country where i was born, being too sensitive and crying too much during holocaust lesson in high school is a symptom. going insane from watching gush katif and amona and the hevron yassam harrassment isn’t normal, sure. maybe it was helpful to cure me from antisemitism learned from the bristol-balfour cult.
watching people hurting in a hospital hurts enough already – especially when the same kind of lobbying used by military-industrial complex for decades has been used for decades also by pharma-industry, with a small respite recently of non-drug ‘evidence-based’ therapies.
barukh Hashem, when suffering here helps me lower it in the afterlife, if that whole discussion about did bilam have an olam haba to lose in the first place applies. please tell me if i shouldn’t comment here any more.
violence really isn’t normal for jews. normal is growing food and practicing the non-war mitzvos. sorry i watched this. sorry for typing this.
Dafka, this is probably one of the more ‘sane’ comments I’ve had on the blog…
Violence is not the Jewish way.
Necessary self-defense, with God and the real tzaddikim 100% in the picture, of course.
But ‘carpet bombing’, ‘price tag’ violence, and ‘Hannibal Doctrines’ – if that’s actually really a thing – are totally un-Jewish.
Rabbeinu alav haShalom, who killed a goy to save a Jew BITTEN (only) by the Egyptian…… He is Moshe Rabbeinu 😎 And to be clear , I am not a follower of rabbi Kahane , just a read one of his books fifteen years ago. BUT as I don’t give a chance to those reshaim who slander your rav- rav Berland may Hashem give to him a Long Life- or slander against any other religious Torah observant Jew, like that , I don’t stay silent when you do the same.
I am still waiting for you to tell me how all the violent derangos who quote R Kahane’s teachings to justify their actions are twisting his message.
It’s really very simple.
And if you are trying to equate violent, hate-filled ‘Rambos’ with connections to the deep state to Moshe Rabbenu, then you are insane.
First YOU have to bring quotes and references from rabbi Meir.s teachings to prove us that he was “full of hate” . If not , close your mouth. This is one more slander and lashon hara, added to your previous slanders that I reminded to you. This is the second time also that you call me insane, no mention about my “true colors”, thank you for this. But about what you wrote that rabbi Kahane was arrogant and preached Kahanism as the only way : 1. Quotes 2. You are judging your self . I never accused you before , for your Suvu-banism exaggerations and the repeated claims of about your rav, rav- Berland that he is above all other tzadikim of today , because all of us ,we have similar attitude in our katnut state. BUT now, I’m not giving in to you , because of your repeated slanders . So as we have Suvu-Banism or Bresloverism or Chabadism etc. or any other “ism” we have Kahanism , and you are in it also. The others are bad, you are the saint 🙄 SO … go to your rav , tell him that you posted , that the Sefer Yetsirah is “demonic” Kabbalah and you threw it out , tell him that you spread your slanders against r. Abulafia, r. Sarug, chachmei Italia , r. Kaplan, r. Kahane also. Do it ,because you are in a very dangerous ground. For your own good. But IF you will continue to answer me with arrogance , or IF you will continue your slander, I will arrange that Rav Berland will hear about this.
Rebbe Nachman teaches us that the ‘fakers’ are so good at faking, you have to really look at a person’s students, who bear the impression of their leader’s true character and teachings, like a seal in wax.
You are doing a great job of showing what Meir Kahane really stands for.
Thanks.
B”H
kavod harav,
the mitzri was also seducing an israelite woman( the _only_ case of adultery in the exile of mitzraim ). it’s possible that that mitzri came back in gilgul as a roman soldier whose son became a student of rabbi yehoshua ben perachia. these are similar archetypes. that kind of eisav kiss-bite is toxic, that federal psyop to sic the jdl on the panthers with lies is evidence that america’s deep state deeply hated harav kahane, may hashem avenge his blood.
on the other hand,/
as truth continues to emerge from foia requests and further research, it’s obvious also that the american deep state deeply hates the victim/perpetrators indoctrinated by the UNRWA. manipulating people like that is not friendly. about 2/3 of ‘them’ and most israelis want to cancel the oslo process, but europeans and colonists here in the west of the atlantic keep pushing it. barukh Hashem i didn’t deserve to be born in a place like ‘aza. i still need to continue to BeEzrat Hashem deprogram the ideology of eisaw from my brain.
to rivka’s question, harav yaron reuven shlit”a has a lesson about why did hevel deserve to die? ( the question of who was the first deep-state agent )
possible that the contamination of the nahash was affecting his brain and that his mistaken opinion about why it was allowed to offer animals to Hashem was problematic, if i remember the lesson.
from another lesson, i don’t remember the source, kayin returned in gilgul as the mitzri killed by moshe rabbeinu.
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BeEzrat Hashem, am yisrael will win the diplomatic, economic, and security work ahead – GRA ztz”l says that all the wisdoms are contained within torah, and exist for it. maybe it’s too easy while practicing makhloket lshem shamayim to mistake yosef for eisaw or yishmael, maybe i shouldn’t have written this. yosef remembered the face of his father. he looked at the ground. and like the hassidic story about a rebbe looking into the office of the GRA, not knocking on the door, delaying the geulah so that people can continue tshuvah, yosef is still alive. he is melekh in mitzraim, and has two sons, menashe and efraim. (sorry about my english, and forgetting)
b’ahavat yisrael,
yosef
You said that those who are “anti” Eliezer Berland are those whom we should not be listening to.
Rabbi Chananya Weissman is “anti” Eliezer Berland and Breslev, so where do you stand regarding him? Since you’ve linked to his work several times before. It was actually from him that I discovered your site! Blessed is the Lord.
I agree with much of what he says still, but not regarding those matters.
I know Chananya is privately ‘anti’, but to my knowledge, he hasn’t said things that are publically ‘anti’…. has he?
No, it was only in private email correspondences.
When I first got to Israel, (and long before I got into Breslov) I read a couple of Meir Kahane’s books, including Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews.
While some of what he said resonated – and still does resonate, things like this, for example:
https://barbaraginsberg-kahane.blogspot.com/2017/09/is-holocaust-really-inexplicable.html
I was totally turned off by his arrogance, and also the way he kept referring to ‘Kahanism’ as the answer.
At least in the book Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews, ‘Kahanism’ seems to have replaced ‘Judaism’.
And that made me very uncomfortable, 20 years ago, when I was reading the book.
Fast-forward to today, after all the research that went into the ‘elite’ families that have run our Jewish community for centuries – which of course, Meir Kahane descended from, and of course, his father was ‘good friends’ with Jabotinsky, and Menachem Begin was a regular guest at his childhood home, and he was born and raised ‘within the matrix’ – and I am re-examining whether or not anyone could get to such national and international prominence, if they weren’t be helped ‘by the machine’.
And then, I’m also re-examining the outcome of Meir Kahane’s teachings. What good things actually came from them, tachlis?
I know he inspired some people in the US to make some real teshuva and move to Israel. That was a good thing.
At the same time, many of the people who made teshuva and moved here came with that ‘Esavian’ mindset that guns and violence is the only way ‘to win’ in Israel.
And deliberately or not, that paved the way for ‘the evils’ to smear the whole dati leumi community as violent extremists and ‘terrorists’, which then was the perfect cover story for Rabin to get murdered – which was then blamed on ‘the settlers’.
And that in turn led the way to the State’s harsh repression of the non-violent protests against the destruction of Jewish communities in Gush Katif.
And now, we have ‘Otzma Ha Yehudit’, and more lunatics, providing more of a ‘cover story’ for the USA’s urgent need to have ‘Jewish terrorists’ in Judea and the Shomron.
So I look at the ‘fruits’ of his teachings… and I don’t see a lot to boast about.
So then the question is: was this ‘failure’ just a byproduct of the wrong idea with genuine intentions?
Or was it something ‘the matrix’ actually planted, developed and groomed, for its own purposes, to continue subverting the religious Jewish community from within?
When people go straight into making personal attacks against me – and others who are asking some reasonable questions – instead of trying to provide a straight answer and help to do this birur, that doesn’t reassure me that nothing dodgy was actually going on here.
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UPDATE:
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israel-news/2244520/breaking-us-says-extremist-west-bank-settlers-will-be-barred-from-america.html
This is from today.
What is really going on here? Clearly, the USA still ‘needs its terrorists’ – so the question is, why are ‘Jewish terrorists’ something that the USA has been strongly interested in ‘establishing’ within Israel, for the last few decades?
What’s the real end game?
B”H
i made mistakes on the other comments, some which are that the mitzri killed by moshe rabbeinu wasn’t killed with a weapon, but with speech, that the mitzri was beating the woman’s husband, possibly to keep him quiet, and that (possibly) the mitzri didn’t seduce her, he attacked her.
thanks for publishing those pdfs about harav berland shlit”a. i couldn’t find volume 1 in print, so i printed it.
chag urim sameach.