Words From Rabbi White

Dear friends,

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, IT’S A WONDERFUL TOWN (written by Leonard Bernstein, 1944; sung by F. Sinatra) By now, you have all heard the election results from across the river that divides my home in NJ from NYC., into what will now be known as (according to the NY Post) the “Red Apple: on your Marx, get set, go..”

The new mayor-to-be has pledged to arrest the PM of Israel, should he ever step foot into the city.  He is a believer in freedom of speech, as long as the speech calls for globalizing the intifada, and having Palestine be free (of Jews) from the river to the sea (Gd forbid.)  He has pledged to divest from Israel. The tragedy of 9/11 for him was not the many citizens who were killed by jihadists, but that his relative was afraid to wear her hijab in the subway, due to “Islamophobia.” His vision for New York City would make it into a worker’s paradise, something like Cuba, Venezuela, or Russia. His great hope is that his victory would serve as a model for the whole United States, and then for the world.

Perhaps unbelievably, some of his greatest support, leading to his victory, came from Jews. As Rabbi Ben Blech wrote in the recent "Jewish Journal:" “Throughout Jewish history, there’s been a strange and heartbreaking pattern: Jews who, for political or ideological reasons, champion movements and leaders whose victory would ensure their own destruction.” Rabbi Blech referred to the Jews in the time of Yirmiyahu, who thought that Egypt could save them from the Babylonians; the Zealots who, in the time of the Roman conquest, had a policy that guaranteed starvation and defeat; And, of course, the Jewish Marxists who denounced Zionists. The list, sadly, goes on and on.

I receive the “Jewish Forward” newspaper in my inbox. Their obsequiousness to “progressive” thought is extremely upsetting. In recent months, they have published several articles that looked favourably upon Mamdani. Actually, in their latest issue, they take pride in having established, from early in the 20^th century, “democratic socialism” in America.

As I have written before, when I was younger, I thought that this week’s parasha, which tells of Avraham’s treaty with Avimelech, the King of Plishtim, teaches us the importance of peace treaties. That’s what I thought, until I saw Rashbam’s comment at the beginning of the story of the Akeidah in this week’s parasha. Rashbam claimed that the whole purpose of the Akeida, which comes immediately after Avraham’s peace treaty, and is introduced by the words “after these things,” was to teach Avraham (and by extension: to teach us) that he made a serious mistake in appeasing the Plishtim.

We pray for good news: for NYC, for America, for Canada, for Israel, for the world.

Thursday, 22 Cheshvan, Michael Rubin observes for his grandmother, Sadie Spector. "la-Neshamah tiheyeh `aliya"

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Menahem White, Chevra Shaas