"Is Our Sister a Whore?"

In The Light of the Jewish Idea of Rabbi Kahane

by Nachum Shifren 

There is a cry so deep, an anguish so profound, that words cannot utter their pain. For 2000 years of our dispersion, our people have been humiliated and degraded like no other. From every land in which we became "normal citizens like everyone else", we were driven to the brink through exportations (in the best of cases), confiscations, starvations, pogroms and every satanic "final solution" imaginable. 

So one would think that with the rise of the State of Israel, an independent Jewish state, there would arise as well a consensus about the appropriate response to Jew-hatred and those that want to harm or kill Jews. One would have thought that the slogan, "never again," would mean just that. 

When one contemplates the perfidious Israeli government's response to those who would destroy their country a thousands times over, it is as though every Jew in Israel is being forced by default to relive those dark days in Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Dachau. Precisely in places where Jews prayed, begged, and prostrated themselves before G-d, that if ever the opportunity arose for true Jewish independence, they would vow, "never again!" 

We recoil in shock and utter disbelief before an Israeli "government" that entrusts the Gentile nations with its security (as envisioned in the "Baker Report" and with the tacit agreement of the Israeli government). Could there be a greater nightmare than this? Could there be a greater sacrilege to the memory of the millions tortured and cremated in the ovens of the Third Reich? Where is our self-respect and Jewish pride? 

This week's Torah portion was one that Rabbi Kahane (may G-d avenge his blood) said often that the entire book of Jewish morality boiled down to the actions of two young Jewish teens, Levi and Shimon. 

After having learned about the rape of their sister, Dina, Shimon and Levi slew the entire city of Schem by the sword. Every single male. Nearly 10,000 of them. It is this Torah portion that both gives strength and pride to Jews who care about Jews and Judaism, and in contrast, sends shudders up the spines of the Jewish apologists and assimilationists. Our sages asked the question: Why kill them all? Certainly many of them knew nothing of the rape? Answer: Then they should have! The world is not a "jungle", in the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. It is incumbent upon every individual, since the time of Noach (through the Noachide Commandments) to understand that there is a price for murder, rape, and the accompanied silence and obfuscation by the citizens where these crimes took place. From this we learn the corollary about collective punishment regarding Gentile nations that are silent in the face of outrageous and overt acts of violence, sexual misconduct, and idol worship. (see Maimonides' laws of Bnai Noach). 

Bottom line: for one little Jewish girl, who wasn't injured, let alone murdered, an entire city was put to the sword! Imagine. Just imagine, close your eyes, and think of the modern day ramifications of an absolute faith in G-d, of such a powerful self-esteem, of total JEWISHNESS and CARE, one Jew for another! Is it a dream? It wasn't for Shimon and Levi. They knew what they had to do, and did it. And let those Jewish apologists who maintain that Jacob cursed them before he died, know: He cursed only their anger. The great kabbalist and sage, Rabbi Itzchak Ginzburg writes that the ultimate service of the brothers would better have been accomplished if they did the act without emotion, without anger, in a perfunctory way, just like we take out the trash! 

When we read these words in our Torah, we become filled with disgust and contempt about ANY government or body that would be expedient with Jewish lives. And we vow in our hearts, that the day will come when these criminals that have done so with impunity all these years in the name of the Israeli "government" will merit the wrath of Hashem, speedily in our days.