The roar of the lion

Rav Kook in Oros Teshuva says that the people of the world, the peoples of the world are crying like a lioness giving birth, crying and screaming and roaring and trying to escape her cage. When Hashem created the world, that was the biggest death there ever was, says Rav Kook. Constricting "Elokus", the G-dly, infinite energy into "Olamiyus", the time and space limited "world". Rav Kook, writing in the 1st decade of the 20th century, said that the current of teshuva was gushing, the peoples more and more desiring something better, something holier, something more G-dly.

I think that the "goyim", the nations of the world, sense, as I have posted previously, that the Jews are interfering with this process. They may not realize that this is "metaphysical", that we, the Jews accepted a responsibility from Hashem at Mount Sinai that we struggle to fulfill and mostly fail to fulfill. They do realize subconsciously that the Jews are connected to what is "wrong" with the world. This causes them to roar and to cry and to scream.

Many times during the 20th century, the lion escaped from the cage and reaked havoc.

On Sunday, I attended a talk by Professor Yisroel Aumann, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2005 for his work on Game Theory. He explained Game Theory to us in the context of relations between nations. He said that according to Game Theory, nations have to create credible threats to get their opponents to cooperate. When a nation broadcasts that it doesn't want to play anymore, the opponent swoops in for the victory. As he put it, "the best way to make peace is to prepare for war. " One problem is that it is much easier for dictatorships to make credible threats than for democracies, where it is hard to get the supermajority needed to make the types of game-changing threats that are needed to bring the goals, whatever they are, to fulfillment.

When I look at what is going on with Israel and the USA, I wonder what Netanyahu is doing. I agree that he is "right" about the settlement issue, but I don't understand what his contingencies are. Is he prepared to unleash extreme responses to what may come at Israel? Does he think that the possiblity of what may come at Israel is not that serious? I see a fright train coming at us and I don't see us taking counter-actions that will be effective. And I hear the old Motown song from the 1960s in my ears, "Nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide". When the walls close in, we can only have faith in Hashem and in the ultimate outcome that we believe.

The sharp end of the world

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/world/middleeast/28westbank.html?fta=y

My thought, when reading this article, is that Israel is the fulcrum, the sharp end, on almost all international issues of interst. Here is a gay, possibly communist Israeli Jew who loves helping the Palestinians. He is alienated in so many ways

This is what happens when a good person, a Jew, living in the holy land, is separate from Torah and Avodas Hashem...
Teshuva is the answer.

How to become President in four months

Barack Obama on Sarah Palin:

"...At least one savvy politician—Barack Obama—believed Palin would never have time to get up to speed. He told his aides that it had taken him four months to learn how to be a national candidate, and added, “I don’t care how talented she is, this is really a leap.”

From http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908

I look at the way the liberal media HATES her and George W. Bush - It is scary how open they are with their hate.

The work of the Jew

Xposted at: http://www.beyondbt.com/?p=1247#comment-358468

The starting point is the realization that Hashem created and continues to create and sustain a very good world, and he created us to bestow upon us the greatest possible good. As a receipient of good, when I perceive the incredible dimensions and levels of this good, I realize that I am chayiv (obligated) to try to pay back the One who gave me the good. Hashem gave us the Torah to teach us how to pay “him” back.

Note that the opposite of the word Chayiv is the word Patur, which means exempt. The most passive form of the word Patur is Niftar. The implication is that the best, most active way to live is to be chayiv. We need to realize that to be chayiv is a most tremendous blessing. Interestingly, one could say that the first “free choice” is the choice to accept that one is chayiv.

The destruction of human life

When I read this piece (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/653avhtm.asp), I said to myself, this is so bad, so evil. This is the complete failure of any moral education. What a disaster.