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Fun Shabbats planned at Congregation Beth Am this summer – Heritage Florida Jewish News

Posted By on June 23, 2017

While its summer vacation at school, Congregation Beth Am is not taking the season off as it hosts Shabbat in the Round and special themed shabbatos services to which the entire community is invited.

The CBA sanctuary will be arranged in the round with the bima moved to the center of the sanctuary. The Torah will be read from the middle of the congregation where everyone can see the text. The Shaliach Tzibor will conduct services from the midst of the congregation, facing the Ark, where all congregants will face each other with the lay leaders on the same level as the congregation, creating the opportunity for greater participation.

The first Friday of the month will be a birthday and anniversary celebration and the third Friday will be Happy Hour at CBA, complete with beer, wine and soft drinks, special hors doeuvres and desserts. The last Friday of each month will be a family dinner and servicein June it will be Pasta Pals and Prayer and in July, Pancakes PJs and Prayer. Friday night services begin at 7 p.m. with exception to the last Friday family service with dinner beginning at 6:15 p.m. followed by a service at 7.

Summer services are Come as you are Shabbat, wear shorts or casual wear on Friday nights is welcome and encouraged.

These summer shabbatos are hosted by the CBA membership and ritual committees.

For more information, please contact the CBA office at 407-862-3505 or shalom@congbetham.org.

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Fun Shabbats planned at Congregation Beth Am this summer - Heritage Florida Jewish News

A French Jew’s killing provides a test for the new Macron administration – Heritage Florida Jewish News

Posted By on June 23, 2017

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images

President Emmanuel Macron of France at a news conference in Paris, June 12, 2017.

(JTA)-Before he threw Sarah Halimi to her death from a window of her third-story apartment in Paris, 27-year-old KobiliTraore called his Jewish neighbor "Satan" and cried out for Allah.

These and other facts about the April 4 incident that shocked French Jewry are known from testimonies and a recording made by a neighbor, according to the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism watchdog.

Years before the attack, Traorecalled a daughter of his 65-year-old victim, whom he beat savagely before killing, "a dirty Jewess," the daughter said.

Despite these accounts Traore, who reportedly has no history of mental illness, was placed under psychiatric evaluation as per his temporary insanity claim. Prosecutors presented a draft indictment against him for voluntary manslaughter that contains no mention of the aggravated element of a hate crime.

The omission, along with the perceived indifference of authorities and the media in France to a crime that was largely eclipsed by a dramatic elections campaign, has left many members and leaders of the country's traumatized Jewish community feeling marginalized and angry at a society they say is reluctant to confront anti-Semitism head-on.

"The authorities' failure to state the terrorist and anti-Semitic nature of this murder is nothing unusual," Shmuel Trigano, an author of 24 books and a scholar on anti-Semitism,said in an interview on Radio J three weeks after the killing.

Trigano for years has been accusing French authorities of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism-including at times when leaders of French Jewry praised their government for taking extraordinary measures to protect Jews, particularly for deploying thousands of armed soldiers around Jewish institutions for their protection following the murder of four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris in January 2015.

Yet amid silence by authorities and the national media about theApril 4 killing, l'affaire Halimi has emerged as a rallying issue for Jewish leaders, activists and prominent thinkers. They say the investigation is indicative of a deeper problem in French society and the community's first major test for the administration of the newly elected president, Emmanuel Macron.

"Everything about this crime suggests there is an ongoing denial of reality" by authorities, 17 French intellectuals wrotethis month in an open letter published in Le Figaro. "We demand all the truth be brought to light in the murder of Sarah Halimi," added the authors, including Alain Finkielstein, a Jewish philosopher and member of the Academie Francaise-the guardian of French language and culture.

Amid growing criticism by its constituents CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, substituted its calls for patience for authorities' handling of the investigation with open criticism over its handling and bid to intervene legally.

"A Jewish woman, a physician who ran a kindergarten, was murdered at her home amid cries of 'Allah hu akbar," CRIF Vice President Robert Ejnes wrote in a statement titled "An Increasingly Heavy Silence" nearly two months after the incident. The phrase "Allah hu akbar," which means "God is great" in Arabic, is sometimes linked to terrorist attacks.

The judiciary, Ejnes added, "has not referenced the anti-Semitic character of the murder but it is clear that Ms. Sarah Halimi of blessed memory was killed because she was Jewish by a murderer motivated by Islamism."

And the media "has practically not spoken about this, as though the defenestration of a woman is not unusual in Paris in 2017!" he wrote, giving voice to one of the aspects of the affair that many French Jews say is among its most painful aspects.

But it was the open letter by the 17 intellectuals on June 4 that broke the silence in the national media about that affair, according to Herv Gardette, a journalist for the France Culture state radio station. On June 8, Gardetteinvestigated the case in a program titled "Is There a Denial of Anti-Semitism in France?"

Long before the Halimi case, Jewish leaders and thinkers have been complaining for years of a reluctance in society to face inconvenient truths about crimes when their victims happen to be Jewish.

Gardette, who is not Jewish, acknowledged this on his show.

"Strikingly, this murder immediately brings to mind another older murder, of Ilan Halimi in 2006, 24 days after his abduction, and how long it took back then for the anti-Semitic character of the crime to be admitted by the detectives and journalists. So nothing has changed," he said. "Is there a denial of anti-Semitism in France?"

Ilan Halimi (no relation), a Jewish phone salesman, was abducted, tortured and murdered by a gang led by a career criminal with a history of targeting mostly Jewish victims.

In an open letter addressed to French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, the French-Jewish philosopher and historian Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine suggested the silence around the Sarah Halimi case stems from the establishment's desire not to offend Muslims-and to deprive the anti-Muslim far right, led by the leader of the National Front party Marine Le Pen, of campaign fodder.

"Insisting on not calling a spade a spade, minimizing ('isolated acts' and 'lone wolves'), euphemizing ('children lost to jihad'), justifying, banalizing and playing psychiatrist will get us nowhere," Laignel-Lavastine wrote.

As for Macron, hisofficial platformspeaks of "fighting with determination against all radical streams that distort the values" of Islam, and thedistrust of institutions, conspiracy theoriesand anti-Semitismthey represent.But Macron has remained vague on solutions, proposing to conduct the fight by "helping French Muslims to achieve the [restructuring] of their institutions."

Those who believe that France, despite its previous government's strong mobilization to protect Jews, has a denial problem cite a long list of cases that they say have been swept under the carpet.

According to Trigano's research, the French government under former President Jacques Chirac suppressedthe anti-Semitic characteristics of at least 500 assaults recorded in the years 2000-02, when anti-Jewish incidents grew from a few dozen annually to hundreds of incidents each year.

More recent cases included the omission of an anti-Semitic motive in a draft indictment against the alleged perpetrators of a 2014 rape and robbery of a Jewish family in the Paris suburb of Creteil. The hate crime element was added following a public outcry.

In 2015, a man who stabbed three Jews near a synagogue in Marseille while crying Allah's name was initially labeled mentally ill by police, who revised their indictment to omit any reference to mental health following criticism by Jewish leaders.

The question about denial "needs to be asked, and in those terms," Alain Jakubowicz, president of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism-the French counterpart of the Anti-Defamation League-said during the June 8 radio broadcast. "There is a denial of reality when it comes to this new form of anti-Semitism, which is as deadly as the previous and which poses a problem particularly in France."

Scholars and watchdogs also worry that anti-Semitic acts arelabeled and minimized as "anti-Israel." The scrapping this year of a documentary about this phenomenon-what some call the "new anti-Semitism"-by the Franco-German Arte television channel "shows the specific treatment of this subject in France, as opposed to other countries," said Jakubowicz.

Magali Lafourcade, president of the French government's National Consultative Commission on Human Rights,said she welcomes the debate over whether authorities downplay anti-Semitism and hate crimes. However, referring to the Halimi case during the France Culture broadcast, she said "we need to let the judiciary do its job" and detectives need time to review all aspects of the case.

In March, Lafourcade's commission reporteda 50 percent drop in the number of anti-Semitic crimes, which it attributed to the deployment of troops outside synagogues, Jewish schools and other institutions deemed at risk of anti-Semitic attacks. But her report questioned the existence of the "new anti-Semitism" and noted only far-right perpetrators of anti-Semitic crimes, stating that other perpetrators could not be classified one way or another.

Jakubowicz rejected Lafourcade's call to wait for word from the judiciary on the Halimi case.

"The entire reason for this mobilization," he said in the radio program, "is that the judiciary is not doing its job."

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A French Jew's killing provides a test for the new Macron administration - Heritage Florida Jewish News

WATCH: Petition Grows to Keep US Holocaust Denier out of Canada – Breitbart News

Posted By on June 23, 2017

Kevin Barrett, who has called the the September 11, 2001attacks an inside job, is due at the event on Saturday afternoon. The annual al-Quds Day march marks the end ofthe Muslim month of Ramadan is generally a call for the destruction of Israel, echoed in other cities around the world as a day of rage against the Jewish State.

Bnai Brith Canada launched the online petitionwhich currently stands at over 2,000 signatures. It calls on the Canada Border Services Agency toban Barrett on account of his ongoing promotion of hatred against members of the Jewish community. Its a bid to protect Canada from foreign hatemongers, said Bnai Brith.

Mr. Barrett allegedly left his teaching position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006, after he supported the notion that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job coordinated by the U.S. and Israel. NowBnai Brith wants to ensure his views are not heard north of the border.

Barrett has repeatedly questioned the murder of six-million Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies during the Holocaust, a Bnai Brith statement said. Barrett has also argued that widespread Holocaust denial in Muslim countries such as Moroccosomehow confirmsthat the Holocaust was fabricated to promote self-serving Zionist assertions.

This is both outrageous and unacceptable, said Michael Mostyn, CEO of Bnai Brith Canada. Inviting a notorious Holocaust denier to this event demonstrates once and for all that Al-Quds Day is not a mere anti-Israel event, but rather a hate rally designed to demonize and denigrate Canadas Jewish population.

Toronto police must not allow Queens Park, our provincial legislature, to become a platform for Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, and the CBSA must not allow Kevin Barrett into our country. Enough is enough.

According to Bnai Brith, Barrett was barred from entering Canada in 2015 afterstating that the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, which resulted in the deaths of 12 people, was a false-flag operation.

P.S. DO YOU WANT MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX?SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY BREITBART NEWSLETTER.

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WATCH: Petition Grows to Keep US Holocaust Denier out of Canada - Breitbart News

Hospital worker accused of online posts trashing Hasidic women – News 12 Westchester

Posted By on June 23, 2017

NYACK -

A Nyack Hospital employee is accused of posting offensive comments about Hasidic women on Facebook.

Deborah Rosario allegedly accused Hasidic women of not working and hiding behind their religion. She also allegedly said that they shop at Lord & Taylor while her tax dollars pay for their children.

Reaction from the Hasidic community was swift, with one community activist meeting Thursday morning with hospital officials.

"The leadership of the hospital told me they have zero tolerance against prejudice. Workers have a code of conduct and how they cannot express themselves in a disparaging manner, says Yossi Gestetner, of OJPAC Hudson Valley.

The hospital issued a statement that reads in part, We are appalled by the Facebook post, which in no way reflects our ideals and care delivered each day."

Nyack Hospital says the incident is under investigation, but declined to release any information about Rosario or the future of her employment.

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Hospital worker accused of online posts trashing Hasidic women - News 12 Westchester

Surprise: Ashkenazi Jews Are Genetically European

Posted By on June 23, 2017

An Orthodox Jewish man with the traditional peyos, or long sidelocks.

The origin of the Ashkenazi Jews, who come most recently from Europe, has largely been shrouded in mystery. But a new study suggests that at least their maternal lineage may derive largely from Europe.

Though the finding may seem intuitive, it contradicts the notion that European Jews mostly descend from people who left Israel and the Middle East around 2,000 years ago. Instead, a substantial proportion of the population originates from local Europeans who converted to Judaism, said study co-author Martin Richards, an archaeogeneticist at the University of Huddersfield in England.

Tangled legacy

Little is known about the history of Ashkenazi Jews before they were expelled from the Mediterranean and settled in what is now Poland around the 12th century. On average, all Ashkenazi Jews are genetically as closely related to each other as fourth or fifth cousins, said Dr. Harry Ostrer, a pathology, pediatrics and genetics professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and the author of "Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People" (Oxford University Press, 2012).

But depending on whether the lineage gets traced through maternal or paternal DNA or through the rest of the genome, researchers got very different answers for whether Ashkenazi originally came from Europe or the Near East.

Past research found that 50 percent to 80 percent of DNA from the Ashkenazi Y chromosome, which is used to trace the male lineage, originated in the Near East, Richards said. That supported a story wherein Jews came from Israel and largely eschewed intermarriage when they settled in Europe. [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds]

But historical documents tell a slightly different tale. Based on accounts such as those of Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, by the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70, as many as 6 million Jews were living in the Roman Empire, but outside Israel, mainly in Italy and Southern Europe. In contrast, only about 500,000 lived in Judea, said Ostrer, who was not involved in the new study.

"The major Jewish communities were outside Judea," Ostrer told LiveScience.

Maternal DNA

Richards and his colleagues analyzed mitochondrial DNA, which is contained in the cytoplasm of the egg and passed down only from the mother, from more than 3,500 people throughout the Near East, the Caucusus and Europe, including Ashkenazi Jews.

The team found that four founders were responsible for 40 percent of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA, and that all of these founders originated in Europe. The majority of the remaining people could be traced to other European lineages.

All told, more than 80 percent of the maternal lineages of Ashkenazi Jews could be traced to Europe, with only a few lineages originating in the Near East.

Virtually none came from the North Caucasus, located along the border between Europe and Asia between the Black and Caspian seas.

The finding should thoroughly debunk one of the most questionable, but still tenacious, hypotheses: that most Ashkenazi Jews can trace their roots to the mysterious Khazar Kingdom that flourished during the ninth century in the region between the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Empire, Richards and Ostrer said.

The genetics suggest many of the founding Ashkenazi women were actually converts from local European populations.

"The simplest explanation was that it was mainly women who converted and they married with men who'd come from the Near East," Richards told LiveScience.

Another possibility is that Jews actively converted both men and women among local populations at this time, although researchers would need more detailed study of paternal lineages to test that hypothesis, Richards said.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterand Google+.FollowLiveScience @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article onLiveScience.

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Surprise: Ashkenazi Jews Are Genetically European

Salad shmalad – is there really such a thing as a Jewish salad? – Jewish Chronicle (blog)

Posted By on June 23, 2017


Jewish Chronicle (blog)
Salad shmalad - is there really such a thing as a Jewish salad?
Jewish Chronicle (blog)
She's talking about NY Ashkenazi Jewish... Those famous salad-eaters. At Monty's Deli - one of London's recent non-kosher New York-style delis described in this article as a "Jewish soul food emporium" is apparently dishing up 'contemporary takes on ...

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Salad shmalad - is there really such a thing as a Jewish salad? - Jewish Chronicle (blog)

APS Superintendent Honored By Anti-Defamation League – Patch.com

Posted By on June 23, 2017


Patch.com
APS Superintendent Honored By Anti-Defamation League
Patch.com
ATLANTA, GA -- The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Southeast Region honor the leader of Atlanta Public Schools on Thursday for the district's success in implementing an anti-bullying initiative. The ADL bestowed APS Superintendent Meria Carstarphen with ...

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APS Superintendent Honored By Anti-Defamation League - Patch.com

Atlanta Public Schools, Carstarphen honored by ADL – MDJOnline.com

Posted By on June 23, 2017

The Anti-Defamation Leagues Southeast region awarded its Stuart Lewengrub Torch of Liberty Award to Atlanta Public Schools and its superintendent, Meria J. Carstarphen, at the annual Torch of Liberty Corporate Breakfast June 22 at 103 West in Buckhead.

This award recognizes the incredible work that Atlanta Public Schools has done over the past two years to implement the leagues No Place for Hate program throughout the entire school district, Shelley Rose, the leagues interim regional director, said in a news release. 52,000 students have been inspired to stand up to hate by this program.

No Place for Hate is a league initiative offered free to schools. The initiative is designed to rally the entire school around the goal of creating a welcoming community committed to stopping all forms of bias and bullying. In 2012, as the Austin Independent School Districts superintendent, Carstarphen was so impressed with the leagues No Place for Hate initiative, she announced plans to bring the program to the entire district. That passion and commitment continued when she became superintendent of the Atlanta district in July 2014. The following year, it introduced the leagues flagship education initiative district-wide. The Atlanta district continues to see progress as they work aggressively to address and prevent bullying and cyberbullying, as well as educate against all forms of hatred.

The No Place for Hate initiative provides our district with a clear framework to fight bias, bullying and hatred, leading to long-term solutions for creating and maintaining a positive climate, Carstarphen said in accepting the award. We are sending a clear message that hate, bullying and disrespect have no place in our schools. We want our schools to be places where students, staff and families feel safe, welcomed and respected.

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The leagues Southeast region annually presents the Stuart Lewengrub Torch of Liberty Award to an individual, entity or company making outstanding contributions to the welfare of our community. The accolade, which was renamed in honor of Lewengrub, who served as the leagues Southeast regional director from 1965 until his death in 1995, symbolizes the organizations profound commitment to translating its democratic heritage into a way of life for all Americans.

Information: http://www.atlanta.adl.org/2017torch

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Regional, global disputes beneficial to Zionism, terrorism – Mehr News Agency – English Version

Posted By on June 22, 2017

President Rouhani made the remark in the session of the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, while inviting the entire Iranian nation to take part in Quds Day rallies.

"Quds Day is highly respected by Iranian people, all Muslims, and other nations around the world," said Rouhani adding that the issue of Palestine and the Holy Quds is very important to the world.

"It has been 70 years now that the people of the region, especially the people of Palestine and the neighboring countries are suffering from aggression by the occupying Zionist regime, Rouhani said, adding the issue of Palestine can never be forgotten, despite all attempts by the Zionist regime.

"Today, the Zionists' overt and covert intervention can be seen in almost every dispute among countries of the region," the Iranian president said.

He went on to add, "terrorists who sustain injuries in the region, are sent to Zionist Regime's hospitals for treatment. Terrorists are provided with arms and tasked with bombing the region to serve Israels interests. It is crystal clear that the Israeli regime is sponsor of terrorism in the region.

Rouhani further maintained that disputes in the region and the Islamic world, such as disagreements between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and Egypt and Turkey, are beneficial to Zionism and terrorism.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has helped the Iraqi nation in their fight against terrorism and we hope to see Mosul liberated in the near future and serve as a symbol of victory of regional countries against the terrorists plots, he said.

Iran will not let terrorism to spread in the region, said Rouhani adding: "If the masters of terrorism decide to spread terrorist acts to the sacred land of Iran, they must know that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not let terrorists and their masters to do so".

The president warned terrorists that Iran would not allow them to carry out their inhumane acts inside the Iranian terrorist, adding "combatting terrorism is a decision made by the entire Iranian nation. Acting against terrorist headquarters has been decided in the Supreme National Security Council and we have given our armed forces even more authority for countermeasure.

He also said: ""We will not let terrorists to turn Iran into a battlefield. Their masters must know that Iran is different from other countries of the region," Rouhani continued.

"The new US administration must know that the Iranian nation will neither remain silent not tolerate any intimidation and pressure, but rather it will respond adequately, he warned.

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Regional, global disputes beneficial to Zionism, terrorism - Mehr News Agency - English Version

Korach: Strip-mining Mount Sinai – The Jewish Standard

Posted By on June 22, 2017

In this weeks Torah portion, Korach, we read of simultaneous multiple rebellions against the regime of Moses, his brother Aaron the Kohen Gadol, and their silent partner, God. Strangely enough, although we know the rebellions failed to topple the leadership and we have more quotes from Korach and his cohorts than we often find from major figures in the Bible, we dont actually know what the content of their arguments was. Scandal yes. Revolt yes. Challenge withstood yes. But the essence of their arguments was as the talmud tells us of any dispute that is not for the purpose of heaven not destined to remain (en sofa lehitkayem).

Rabbinic midrashim, of course, go to town on explanations! We should (of course) be cautioned at the outset that there is a danger in seeing too much of contemporary issues in ancient texts, even for those living in the rabbinic period who projected their own concerns onto Biblical texts that predated their own times by more than a thousand years. Having said that, the method of combing the textual vicinity for hints is beautifully accomplished in this case. At the end of last weeks portion, the laws of the tzitzit with its requirement of ablue thread prompt the rabbis to challenge the law in the (virtual) voice of Korach: Why a thread of tchelet? What if the entire garment were dyed that shade of blue? Would it still require the addition of a blue string on the corner? Korach and his buddies, the midrash tells us, proceeded to make 250 totally blue tallitot. Considering that the requirement for a single blue string was discontinued in the Talmudic period because the particular dye was prohibitively expensive to obtain and use and too many poor people were substituting cheaper colors, one can only imagine how much those 250 royal blue garments cost! And what, said the Korach character, of a house filled with Torah scrolls z- does it need a mezuzah (with only two paragraphs from the Torah) on its doorposts? Again, we notice that the question seems ludicrous in an age before the printing press made publication of books affordable to anybody outside the most elite.

How can following the rules that Moses dictated to us satisfy Gods requirements when a more complete expression will not? Korach uses his best legal arguments to tear down Moses authority. Maybe people would not be swayed by such legalisms in normal times, but another midrash about Korach has him representing the case against Moses and Aaron brought by a poor widow and two orphan girls who are thwarted by their laws at every step they unfortunately take. Their subsistence depends on a small field, but Moses and Aaron demand they leave aside the corners, forgotten sheaves, and also that they pay ten percent to the Kohanim (maaser). They shear what few sheep they own to try to make a living selling the wool, but Aaron demands the first cuttings (reishit ha-gez), and when they decide that they cant afford to keep the sheep and that they would eat them instead, Aaron demands that which is due to the kohanim from all slaughterings. These poor ladies cannot catch a break, because at every turn, the system takes from them until helpful Korach comes along to argue their cause.

We know from experience that no system works perfectly for everybody. Even more so, the mathematician Kurt Godel proved in 1931 that no system can possibly be complete. Try to work out all the rules to be efficient and consistent, and there will always be something that doesnt fit, that cant be proven, that destroys the completeness of whatever system of rules you may create. As Douglas Hofstadter analogizes in his classic book Godel, Escher, Bach; an Eternal Golden Braid, there always exists a phonograph record that when it is played on a turntable of sufficient fidelity will produce sounds that will destroy the machine. Any and every complete system can be manipulated in such a way that it can destroy itself by its own rules, even the system of halacha or the laws and rules and regulations that govern life in the United States.

According to this reading, Korach pushed the process along to bring the system crashing down, ostensibly to help the poor lady. No matter that Moses and Aaron, in following Gods laws, helped the entire Israelite nation survive (receive manna, be guided by a pillar of fire, win battles against enemies). If one person suffers, says Korach, better to bring the entire structure crashing down! Like Osama bin Laden, the trained engineer from the wealthy Saudi Arabian family who could have used some of his vast reserves of money to help poor Arabs whom he claimed to represent (so, too with Yasser Arafat and others), Korach found it suited him better to tear down an entire society rather than actually giving assistance to those who most needed it. The many suffer at the hands of these demagogues and saviors, ostensibly in the name of the few who suffer.

It is always easier to tear down than to build up, to destroy a system rather than improve it. As they greatest sages of their generation, the talmudic rabbis Rav Yosef and Rabbah are nicknamed Sinai and Uprooter of Mountains. Rav Yosefs knowledge was encyclopedic, full and useful. Rabbah, on the other hand, had a keen analytic mind, able to find chinks in every argument to riposte and ultimately, improve the clarity and strength of anyones thinking, especially in pursuit of the Truth. They were each outstanding academics up for leadership of the great academy of Pumbedita. In Horayot 14a, the question is raised as to which should be in charge, Sinai or Uprooter. The answer was that Sinai takes precedence because everybody needs a provider of grain. When, however, the position was offered to Rav Yosef, he turned it down. Rabbah served for twenty two years, after which Rav Yosef succeeded him.

It is always easier to stripmine all the beauty and profit from a system as Korach tried to do. But to build up and maintain a mountainscape, a community dedicated to what is true and good and helpful to those who most need it to build a Sinai is never easy. Ultimately, if they are of good character and join in the fray for the good of the community, both mountain building and gradual erosion serve to maintain a healthy and ever-improving balance in the world. When we can find the best in us all and dedicate ourselves to the hard work of perfecting rather than merely repealing or uprooting, we will always find Sinai to be a revelation.

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Korach: Strip-mining Mount Sinai - The Jewish Standard


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