HaKatan

mdd, if you’d like to respond and have the last word about this, please feel free; I have quoted and brought down multiple secular sources, in addition to, lihavdil, Rav Chaim, whose shita is not at all shvere. You, on the other hand, have quoted nothing.

Despite your feelings on the matter regarding what you wish it were, and regardless of any Zionist propaganda to the contrary, the facts are what they are. As Rav Chaim said, Zionists need a State to shmad, not the other way around.

yichusdik, you missed the entire point and, as a bonus, you are also wrong about the Nazi comparison.

I was not condemning anyone, and certainly not a typical secular chiloni who I have previously said is likely a tonik sheNishba. I also never claimed anyone is an angel. Please relax.

I agree with you that many of them could care less what “Chareidim” do, other than the army issue.

The point is what Zionism is and is not. Zionism is shmad. Zionism is NOT merely a movement for a State. I explained all this above.

That doesn’t mean your typical chiloni is or is not anything. But Zionism is still shmad, as written.

MDD: I assume you wouldn’t care to actually back up your assertion that I am “wrong”? I even gave you plenty of reading material for mine. I guess you meant that you don’t agree even though you can’t disprove what I wrote and also have no (stated) proof to your own wishes about Zionism.

mdd:

The more you read, the more you see the Brisker Rov was absolutely right.

The more you observe current events, the more you see how he is still just as right.

Even in your own view about what he meant, he is still spouting kefirah, hence proving the Brisker Rov’s point.

Zionism believes that Jews need a State to be “normal” and that they need to be just like the nations and that religion had to go and the old Jew would be gone and the “new Jew” would be a Zionist, CH”V. His goal was “normalcy”, not safety. This is not within acceptable Jewish belief any way you slice it.

Here is a small sample of quotes:

Ben Gurion wrote:

“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter…”

And Ben-Gurion wrote this blood libel, in the N.Y. Times, 4/22/1963:

“Jews are, in truth, a separate element in the midst of the peoples among whom they live; an element that cannot be completely absorbed by any nation. For this reason, no nation can calmly tolerate it in its midst.”

And on Zionism leaving Judaism behind:

“Our code must be framed to…fuse the returning tribes into a homogeneous national and cultural unit…cleansing of our lives from the trivia and dross which gathered upon us in dependence and exile…We have set up a dynamic State, bent upon creation and reform…Laws…merely a digest of experience and the lessons of the past, are useless to us. We need to…clear the path for circumstantial change.”

This is, of course, a primary function of the IDF.

Rabbi Gifter and many others bring up some of this.

Google “Jewish life is a dog’s life that evokes disgust”, which is also a Zionist quote, and see “The Zionist Illusion” in Google Books.

The Zionists don’t hide that they despise Judaism and its adherents and the Zionists have gone to extreme lengths to attempt to CH”V replace Judaism with, lihavdil, Zionism. As the Brisker Rov said, the Zionists need a State in order to shmad, not the other way around. There is plenty to read here and elsewhere that confirms this, not that he needs my confirmation.

EOM:

Our gedolim have written that the point of Zionism is shmad, and therefore the Zionists need a State, not the other way around. And that Zionism is Avoda Zara and Religion mixed with Zionism is merely Religion and A”Z biShituf.

Zionists wanted Zionism to, CH”V, replace Judaism as the religion of the Jews.

It is clear to anyone who observes what goes on there that this still holds true today, even if the Zionists’ methods have changed since Yaldei Teheran, et al. But this is besides the point.

Once you understand what Zionism is, it is clear that pro-Zionist means pro-Shmad even if the pro-shmad part is unintentional.

The Zionist “favors” are to either further trick people into believing in Zionism as, CH”V, the new Jewish religion and/or to buy influence and votes. (Of course, the “religious parties” in their parliament do work for the welfare of their constituents). Pirkei Avos basically says as much; this is not a chiddush.

As mentioned, the “Chareidim” lived in Eretz Yisrael before the Zionists came along and started up with the Arabs against the expressed wishes of Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld and the existing Chareidi population.

As for Hakaras haTov, I’ve previously posted the example of an arsonist who sets fire to a massive building complex and, while the fire rages, then goes to get his firetruck.

Once you’ve clarified what, if any, hakaras haTov, is due this arsonist, then you can determine the same for Zionism.

EOM, achdus is nice, and sinas chinam is not (not that I believe there is necessarily sina of any kind here). But this does not justify shmad. The IDF is a cultural organ, first and foremost. It happens to also be an army.

But any step to try to get chareidim into the IDF is for the sole purpose of acculturating them to the idolatry and kefirah of Zionism. As a bonus, the giluy arayos is also included.

As for akuperma’s “cavalier” attitude, I think his point is that, contrary to Zionist theology, the Holocaust is a part of galus just like the many other tragedies before it, Hashem Yishmor.

nfgo, since you mention the Torah’s great value of Jewish lives, what is your opinion on the thousands of Jewish lives sacrificed on the altar of Zionism and the State of Israel, especially before it “protected” any Jews?

I don’t agree with everything akuperma posted, but I wanted to point out that it is not “we” Jews who have a dispute with the Arabs over real estate, but rather it is the Zionists who idiotically insisted on having that dispute. Jews asked them to NOT do so but they went ahead and did so anyways and convinced the world to allow them to represent world Jewry during WW II and beyond.

Gedolim have written that the reason the Zionists are Zionists is to shmad, to change the Jewish faith and people from Jews to R”L Zionists. This MO still goes on today, albeit in slightly different form.

Avi K,

Please feel free to respond and have the last word between us on this; as a Zionist, you are intent on serving your idol and there is evidently nothing anybody can say to make you give that up until BaYom haHu yihye Hashem echad uShmo echad.

1. The oaths are halacha, as has been more than amply demonstrated. As well, the Rambam would not have brought them up to the Yemenites if they were not in force.

I’m quoting from another site to answer your question regarding Mishneh Torah, “The Satmar Rav proposed that the Rambam did not need to mention them because he held that to violate them would be an act of heresy”.

2. Even if the British had no good reason to have the Patria sent to a different colony, political considerations are never a reason to detonate explosives on a boat packed with civilians as the Zionists did in that case.

3. Even the Zionists had a committee of inquiry about this very sordid affair. Multiple sources have documented it, HaModia recently had an article on it, etc.

4. Kol HaPoseil…

5. He says that he was not justifying any “ism”.

6. Signs of the geulah do not justify Zionism. In fact, gedolim have said that Zionism

is holding back the geulah. After all, we see the sign that it’s otherwise ready, as indicated by the gemara.

7. Although “Religious Zionists” can’t get enough of that book, there is no “long list of gedolim” who “concur” with Rabbi Teichtal. And please see #4.

You are so desperate to justify this idolatry and heresy that you are denying reality and writing nonsense.

“GUA”:

Hashem wants us to do the right thing and not to stumble.

So since the Brisker Rov compared the State to the egel when he said the State of Israel is the Satan’s greatest triumph since the egel, it is simply not possible for him to have also said that Hashem “smiled” about the State any more than He “smiled” about the egel.

The stira seems irreconcilable, in my humble opinion.

mdd, I did mention both sides of the Moetzes debate, for what that debate was worth. Since you obviously missed it before, here is Rabbi Reisman, as quoted in the Flatbush Jewish Journal:

“Although most of the Torah rabbis opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in our ancient homeland, once it was established in 1948, the attitude of some leading rabbis changed to one of working with the government…As Rabbi Reuven Grozovsky wrote, the ideals don’t change. The ideal of sticking to the three oaths remains. But because the facts on the ground have changed, therefore our behavior is different.”

Notice he wrote “most of the Torah rabbis”, not “Brisk/Satmar” rabbis. Notice also that even after 1948 “sticking to the three oaths remains”. So regarding lying/distorting, is this, perhaps, a case of kol haPoseil biMumo Poseil?

To clarify your mistake, it is the Zionists who have no answers.

Avi K:

1. Popa already answered you earlier. Again, he used the oaths as the basis for a recorded psak. And other poskim did bring them. And Zionist Rabbis still struggle (unsuccessfully) to explain them away. They are halacha, despite Zionists wishing they weren’t.

2. There only took that risk for political reasons. It was totally unnecessary, except that to Zionists any benefit to the State is more important than pikuach nefesh.

3. Health dealt with this.

4. You opt to remain ignorant, and this does not change history.

5. Rabbi Teichtal was not a Zionist. His hakdama says so. This is all nonsense.

6. Who said it is? Zionists, who have no problem with shmad of Jews, and who make nationalism a religious obligation greater than pikuach nefesh?

7. Your fantasies have been disproven, and I have tried to bring that for you.

You remain deluded by this egel. Rav Elchnon, the Brisker Rov and many others condemned nationalism and Zionism in the harshest terms. You rely on sevaras which anyways aren’t sevaras to go against them. Good luck.

Just Emes:

Again, the outcome was definitely not positive.

Both Zionism and the State have committed appalling acts of treachery against our people.

The Brisker Rov and Chazon Ish and many others were absolutely against the State even after it was founded, regardless of minor differences like voting and other damage control measures. Your “B”D of Klal Yisrael” only goes so far. It certainly can’t change the Torah (nothing can), only work within it. According to what you mentioned, Hashem allowed these Rabbis to dictate world events via their psak that the State should be founded. This seems possible. But this does not make it good.

Do you also think the egel was a good thing, too? After all, Aharon HaKohein asked for the jewelry which was used to make it. (Obviously, we know that he was stalling, etc.) Again, here, you are blaming those Rabbis who voted for the State’s creation as the ones responsible spiritually for its creation (maybe they also had a cheshbon). So, it’s like the egel, except, there, it was the Micha who threw in Alei Shor, whereas here it was those Rabbis who paskined it should be created so Hashem listened to them. Wonderful!

But does that change the reality of what happened in either case? Do you not understand that far more Jews died for this idol than (directly) from the egel? Why is this so difficult to understand? You admit the secular Zionists did bad things, which is putting it very mildly. So why are you so enraptured by their egel, which is still a disaster and shmad entity? Does their shmad and other aveiros mean nothing to you that you want their State because of the minimal State religious trappings and the significant Torah that is learned there, especially when it’s assur to create that State and its continued existence continually violates the oaths?

And just today, even after all the rivers of blood spilled on the altar of Zionism and the State of Israel, there is yet another story on YWN:

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/169606/Two-Girls-Injured-in-Gush-Etzion-Rock-Throwing-Attack.html

Avi K.

1. Yes, they were obviously written in an allegorical manner (hishbati eschem…im tachpitzu…es haAvaha….). But their halachic status and the Rambam’s advice to the Yemenites quoting those oaths was clearly not Derech Mashal. And many other poskim bring them liHalacha, some of whom I already quoted for you. They are clearly halacha, Zionist fantasies not withstanding.

2. Health dealt with #2. Besides, even if it were accidental as they claim, they took a chance detonating explosives on a ship full of Jews because of Zionist reasons.

3. Even the Zionists admit this; they had a Committee of Inquiry about it. HaModia recently had a whole piece on the Yaldei Teheran scandal too. You don’t need to be more Zionist than the Zionists, though I do understand that uncomfortable facts could diminish one’s belief in this idolatry.

4. Your lack of knowledge says nothing about their history.

5. Again, this makes no sense, as I wrote. Even if your “no longer needed” sevara were theoretically true, it’s clearly not true in this case because of the disaster of Zionism on both a physical and spiritual level, with its ongoing shmad even today.

Zionism has no answers.

Regarding cheap shots and propaganda, did you not learn in pre-school that two wrongs don’t make a right? And did you not learn to discuss something at its merits and not take cheap shots?

Even if what I wrote were only propaganda or otherwise wrong, that would not give you the right to take cheap shots.

mdd, please learn a little bit about the topic before you post.

Avi K:

Regarding R’ Chaim Vital, again, he is not speaking of these gimmel shevuos.

The whole premise is absurd for the following reason:

The oaths are a protection for us in galus, even according to Rabbi Aviner. So, again, as we are still in galus past that 1,000 years, expiring that protection before the end of galus is foolish for obvious safety reasons.

To try to clarify further, however:

He brings the following, in his piece:

The oath in question is a separate oath about the length of the exile.

[than 1000 years]

So, even according to Rav Chaim Vital, that 1,000 year was not a hard limit. But it’s anyways irrelevant because he’s discussing a different oath.

Regardless, it’s not our oaths. Also, even if it were, there are two oaths that Zionism violates, not “just” one. So at least one is still being violated even if you were correct.

lesschumras:

With all due respect, your post makes no sense. Zionism and Israel have nothing to do with freedom to practice our faith throughout the western world. Zionism and Israel are, however, responsible for tens of thousands of Jews who were sacrificed on the altar of their idolatrous State, thousands in the 1948 war alone. We discussed all this.

And none of the shmad perpetrated the Zionists can be expected to have occurred elsewhere. Before the Zionists shmadded them in Israel, the Yemenites had their Mesorah and resultant seforim, etc. intact from bayis rishon. Similarly, other sefardim and ashkenazim as well, were shmadded to Zionism (and I don’t mean “religious Zionism”).

None of this would (presumably) have happened without Zionism.

(Regarding the Holocaust, I believe it was Rav Gifter who wrote that it was common knowledge among the gedolim in the 1900s that Hitler YM”Sh was a divine agent of chastisement due to supporting Zionism. Other Gedolim may not have held that way, but it seems there were many gedolim who did. So your point there is not true according to some.)

ZDad, that would disqualify Rabbi Kook, too.

Once doesn’t need to guess; they could move anywhere, likely including Eretz Yisrael, but nothing can make that idol kosher. The halachic issues are just as valid; the only thing that changed was the tactics in dealing with it post-1948. But the issues, including the 3 oaths, as Rabbi Reisman wrote, never changed.

Regarding the 1,000 years allegation, this is also untrue. Rav Chaim Vital did not say the three oaths last only 1,000 years. We cannot post links, but the explanation of what he does say, which is a separate matter, can be found via Google.

Regarding it not being liMaaseh, even the “Religious Zionists” know the oaths are an issue. They convince themselves of absurd “solutions” (some based on distortions and forgeries, some simply not compatible with our Torah) to avoid the issue, but even the Zionists admit to the oaths being an issue. Poskim bring it, the Rambam brings it, the Maharal brings it, the Brisker Rov brings it and the Satmar Rov brings it, among many others.

Again, following that knessiah, the Zionists foolishly did not abide by the “psak of the beis din of Klal Yisrael” (which did not explicitly address the oaths, and what the halachic ramifications of that “psak” were) that the Zionists would not interfere with religion, thereby anyways rendering that “psak”, for whatever it did mean, null and void.

The Rav Moshe story requires far more clarification for it to be meaningful here.

The Chofetz Chaim, the Brisker Rov, Rav Elchonon, the Satmar Rov, Rabbi Rottenberg and many others have been shown to be very correct regarding the many disasters, both physical and spiritual, that the Zionists have brought on our people, Hashem Yishmor.

Again, the Zionists cannot justify their idolatry.

Just Emes (regarding Mitzrayim):

Given your screen name, and after reading your answer about the State being more worthy of Hakaras HaTov than Mitzrayim, I can only conclude that your Zionist leaning are tainting your ability to think objectively here.

You’re asking a question on a befeirush pasuk (not me) and then somehow trying to extend that to Zionism.

The Torah itself says “Lo Sisaev Mitzri…” and then it explains why, as I said, “ki ger hayisa biArtzo”. So even with all the terrible things the Mitzriyim did to us (and they did not do those terrible things from day one, speaking of “just emes”), they still did host us in their land for tens of decades, and that, the Torah says is worthy of Hakaras HaTov.

“Gadol haMachtio yoser min haHorgo”, certainly applies to Zionists, yet this also doesn’t matter to you.

Besides:

You still haven’t explained why the Zionists, nominal Jews, who still revere the Tanach as a cultural object because, in their warped view, it CH”V justifies their political existence in Eretz Yisrael. Why SHOULDN’T the Zionists allow Jews to be *gasp* practicing Jews? Why does this make them worthy of Hakaras HaTov?

As for the subsidies, the State only does this because they have to. It’s called buying influence, and this is history as well, none of which you seem to be interested in, for some reason, and this is a two-way street, despite the whining of the Zionists about it now.

It’s also interesting that you mention how mitzrayim “removed us from kedusha for 210 yrs”, yet you completely ignore all the shmad the Zionists have committed, where they have certainly changed a Jew to be far less distinct than we were in Mitzrayim, and you immediately mention Zionism in that same sentence while leaving all this out. Why?

And even if you live in Eretz Yisrael under Israel’s “protection”, you still haven’t addressed my arsonist fireman example. But for someone who doesn’t live there, who has no reason to be makir tov to that fireman, I certainly disagree with your assertion regarding hakaras haTov.

benignuman:

I assume you meant “cite”, not sight in your post.

Anyways:

There are sites that mention the following hold the oaths as halacha:

Piskei Riaz, Kesubos 13:8

Shailos Uteshuvos Rivash, Siman 101

Maharal (Netzach Yisroel, Chapter 24)

Just Emes:

You haven’t addressed my point that the “Beis Din of Klal Yisrael”‘s psak, whatever that was supposed to allow, was not what happened. So, therefore, that “psak” is anyways meaningless liMaaseh.

Again, bringing up the Ohr Sameach only underscores the crucial need to examine your Rav Moshe story in light of the questions I posed above. The Ohr Sameach did not condone Zionism in any form. He himself cited the oaths, too; but, because of San Remo, he allowed simple emigration to E”Y, not any political rule and not by any fighting, both of which Zionism terribly violated and continue to violate.

Just Emes:

Regarding the Holocaust and Zionists having allegedly done good things:

Your “ain lomar”, the argument that the Jews would have been okay without a State and would have been better off without Zionism and its “favors”, is the most historically sound and also halachicly convincing possibility, provided you understand just how antithetical to Torah is, lihavdil, Zionism, and that you do not accept Zionist lies as historical truth, which you seem to do.

There are some gedolim who claim the Holocaust happened precisely because of the lack of protest against Zionism and that the Holocaust was the terrible result of violating those oaths, of Ani Mattir es Bisaarchem, CH”V. I’ve even read the “middah kinegged middah” explanations, too, according to that shita.

But let’s say one holds like the other gedolim who did not claim this, who say the particular aveira or aveiros that caused this is inexplicable.

Beyond the Holocaust, do you know the shmad they have perpetrated and still do perpetrate on our people? Did Chazal not say “gadol haMachtio yoser min haHorgo”?

Just Emes:

The actual emes is that a good portion of that Agudah knessiah, and not just the Brisker Rov, were against Zionism and against the creation of a State even if (other than the oaths) the State would be run al pi Torah. The Ohr Sameach, too, endorsed the oaths as being halachicly applicable. I wrote about this above.

I also pointed out in my previous post that the Agudah’s “psak” to not hold back accepting the State, whatever that’s supposed to mean, was with the explicit stated understanding that the Zionists would not interfere (negatively) in religious observance. The Zionists very much did and do. So the whole psak seems rather invalid.

You can’t throw out the window a bifeirush gemara, the Rambam, poskim, the Maharal, acharonim, the Chofetz Chaim, the Satmar Rov, Rav Elchonon Wasserman, Rav Aharon Kotler, the Brisker Rov, the Chazon Ish, et al. regarding the oaths with clear accompanying historical record and current events of Zionist aveiros chamuros besides for shmad, etc. just because of an ambiguous story about Rav Moshe with no context of time, place, precision (working with the Zionists versus being a Zionist CH”V), etc. Yiftach biDoro does not allow for this.

I’m not CH”V questioning Rav Moshe’s validity as a posek haDor. Aderaba, I want to know what he held about all these points I mentioned before. This would clarify the issue.

I already addressed your HaKaras HaTov point in my previous post.

Avi K.

1. The Zionists have no good answers.

2. Do you know anything about what galus means? Your position is actually breathtaking in its azus against Hashem. Hashem said the best thing for you in galus is to keep these oaths. You Zionists think you know better. It’s one thing to fantasize that the UN nullifies the oaths. But it’s quite another to say, as you do, that because of all the terrible things the gentiles did to us, Hashem Yishmor, that Hashem CH”V “thought wrong” about giving us those oaths meIkara. But that’s par for the course for Zionists.

3. It’s nice that you feel that way; the gedolim did not.

4. I told you already who it was. HaTekufa HaGidolah is the book.

5. It is irrelevant vis a vis Zionism.

6. He was referring to traditional Orthodoxy, not just Chassidim. Either way, both are flourishing while MO is moving either even *more* “to the left”, CH”V or, B”H “to the right”.

7. Rabbi JBS said it about Rabbi Kook; see “The Rav Thinking Aloud” by Rabbi David Holtzer. Someone asked Rabbi Soloveichik if he felt the presence of greatness. He answered “I wouldn’t say greatness. Uniqueness. “Greatness”? If you understand by “greatness” intellectual greatness: no, I was not impressed by his scholastics.”

But that’s okay; Korach was great, too. But he was still wrong. So it’s at least as possible that Rabbi Kook was wrong, too. It’s all been discussed. See here:

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/rav-elyashev-bans-nachal-chareidi/page/6

Just Emes:

Regarding the Moetzes, I read that the Brisker Rov was not at all in favor of having a moetzes, for a number of reasons. Wasn’t he the one that said a line about how the secretarin will be calling the shots? He certainly did not agree with that decision to condone the State, and neither did Rav Aharon and others who were there.

Regarding that meeting, the ones who opposed those Torah giants felt that “it is possible to agree, according to the laws of the Torah, to the establishment of a Jewish state in its portion of the land of Israel without denying the belief in the coming of the redeemer. There is no need to be concerned that the non-religious will chase, through the Jewish state, the religion.”

They were very, very wrong about that last line. As the Brisker Rov said, the Zionists need a state to shmad, not that they shmad for their State. In hindsight, this is pashut. The shmad they have perpetrated is ayom viNora and still ongoing. So, given the benefit of history, it is highly unlikely that they would have voted as they did if they would have known.

As for hakaras haTov, mitzrayim is not at all an appropriate comparison. The Zionists are (nominally) Jews. Should they not let Jews practice their faith? Every civilized nation allows this. How is this worthy of Hakaras haTov?

As for protecting Jews, I really don’t want to get started listing the myriad things they have done to endanger and worse, CH”V, Jews. So the pathetic amount of protection that their mandatory draft shmad army and American anti-missile system which they know is not fully effective pales in comparison to what they’ve done to Jews. In Mitzrayim, we came to their land and they hosted us, despite the many terrible things they did to us. BiNidon diDan, the Zionists came to Eretz Yisrael and made a terrible churban. There is no comparison.

In reality, a better analogue would be an arsonist who, after setting a complex of buildings on fire and the fire rages powerfully, then runs to his little fire truck. That is, lichaora, the extent of the hakaras haTov due Zionists.