The Redefiners of Judaism Take Insult as Usual

 

Education Minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz stated in a cabinet meeting that the rate of assimilation among the Jewish community in the United States is “like a second Holocaust.” His reference was in respect of the facts known that over fifty-percent of Jews in the United States, Canada and Europe are intermarrying with Christians and secular humanists leaving their Judaism behind ignored and in tatters. Immediately after his comments were leaked, a problem in Israel just as it is in the United States and other Western governments, many Conservative and Reform Jews in the United States. Their insistence is that Rabbi Peretz is ignorant and insensitive to Jews in the Diaspora. This is far from the first time that an Israeli has been accused with lacking the proper attitudes and totally misunderstanding the true reality of what it means to be a Jew in the modern age. This is always how the condemnation of the insistence by Israeli Jews, largely the Orthodox community, for their insensitivity and lack of knowledge of what modern Judaism has evolved into. Their claims are simple, they should define what is a Jew and what Judaism actually believes and means as they call it, in this modern age.

 

We thought that perhaps as av graduate of this United States Diaspora Jews inculcations by which Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and other non-Orthodox branches of Judaism have redefined the Halacha to fit their social constructs making them estranged from Torah. The main terminology one would hear from these New Age Jews is Tikkun Olam which they define as repair the world. They take this idea and instead of it meaning that they need to perfect and improve themselves in order to make the world right, they think that they need to make everyone else come around and believe as they do in order to repair the world. They have redefined the Commandments of Torah bending them in order to align them with the platform of the Democrat Party and the beliefs of Secular Humanists. Their reactions to anybody who does not fall in line with their beliefs and definitions are immediately considered to be any of any number of stock names, racist, homophobic, sexist or any other of the plethora of labels thrown around to slam their opponents making them easily discarded as ignorant and uninformed boors. So, how is it that things changed to the point that I not only support Rabbi Rafi Peretz and most of what he has stated, all of which has perturbed the Diaspora Jews and their Tikkun Olam warping of the Commandments of Torah and Judaism.

 

The first thing which probably made my transition to Traditional Orthodoxy since making Aliyah returning home to Eretz Yisroel was our coming home with absolutely no preconceived notions of what to expect of Israel, the societal means or almost anything at all. We came with a wait and see what it is we had come into and exactly what the effects were going to be. It took about six months before finding out that it is far easier to be a practicing Jew in Israel than it was in most places in the United States, especially since I often resided in places like north-central Wyoming where the closest Synagogue was over four-hundred-miles distant and Kosher foods were next to impossible outside of Hebrew National salamis. Then began regular attendance to services, joining classes about Talmud, Torah, Haftorah and other things which covered Judaism and the Commandments giving it straight and without bending, twisting, spindling and otherwise mutilating these writings. This led to noting that most of Judaism was very different from what had been instructed and far more self-centered with the intent for self-improvement. Judaism also had no desire to change other people from outside of Judaism but to improve ourselves to such a degree that others will desire to strive for self-improvement. Judaism, as it has been explained, provides Commandments by which Jews can improve their interaction with others and make of themselves people living an enviable life while not proselytizing others and never even attempting to make converts of others. Judaism is to be practiced by the Jewish People and also converts, despite Judaism making conversion fairly difficult. Often, true conversion takes at a minimum two years of intense studying, and then passing queries posed by a panel of Rabbis.

 

The Ten Commandments

 

Conversion brings us to another point which we will utilize to show the difficulty facing the Jews of the Diaspora and the Jews within Israel. The Chief Rabbinate set the rules for which one is considered Jewish, including how to convert to Judaism. Needless to point out, conversion to Judaism has strict rules before it is accepted by the Chief Rabbinate. This has brought great amounts of condemnation from largely leftist Jewish groups and the leadership of the Conservative, Reform and other non-Orthodox folds of Judaism. Their complaint is that many conversions they have performed are unacceptable within Israel and one who converts to Judaism under many of their systems are not acceptable as being a Jew unless they again convert in Israel under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate. The Chief Rabbinate is often labeled as being overly strict, restrictive and narrow-minded in their recognition of conversions and they need to become more liberal allowing for these New-Age Judaism and their open-mindedness allowing for an open definition as to who is Jewish as after all, there should be little difference between conversion to Judaism and conversion to any other religion. They are totally aware that their critics are based on falsehoods as the Israeli Chief Rabbinate accepts conversions conducted by the RCA (Rabbinical Council of America), the Orthodox Union (OU) and here is a list of approved conversion performed outside Israel. The list is relatively extensive and approved conversions can be readily found by any desiring to convert and ready for a minimum of two years of intense learning.

 

But those Jewish groups and other non-Orthodox branches of Judaism refuse to accept that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate uses identical rules and requirements to those used by every of those listed as approved which in the United States include the RCA and OU conversions. Again, those in the Diaspora insist that Israel bend their rules and accept their definition of Judaism simply because they are more enlightened, open-minded free-thinking and tolerant. That is partly the problem as Judaism must remain strictly defined and steeped in traditions as well as kept honoring, respecting and following the exact rules of Torah given by Moses during the Exodus. Judaism is not to conform to the ideas of the Justice Democrats, the New Israel Fund, IfNotNow and numerous other Jewish leftist groups who all demand Israel accept their unarguable perfect and correct definitions of Judaism and what it means to be a good person. Their vision is an Israel as a subordinate to the Democrat Party platform and the leftist agenda based on their concepts of justice, LGBTQ rights, human rights, and demanding that Israel sacrifice whatever it takes to reach peace with the Palestinian Authority. Basically, these Diaspora Jews refuse to accept Torah Judaism as it has been defined for over three-thousand-years and instead supplant Torah with their LGBTQ, international justice, human tights and numerous other leftist central beliefs replacing Torah. Having lived in both communities, it can honestly be stated that Torah Judaism is centered and planted firmly in Jewish history and practice while the leftist justice warriors who insist that they can make and define a batter Judaism would not be planted and continue into the future with anywhere near the practicality of Torah which has steadies and defined Judaism for three-thousand-years plus. Judaism must remain centered on Torah which has been its anchor and the rock upon which it was founded. This does not mean that Judaism should ignore modernity, Judaism just need remain set in Torah while moderating these other new liberal and leftist concepts and ideas which Diaspora Jews are so enamored. We in Israel need not fear these Jews redefining Israel as the odds for their ever-making Aliyah, if what has been experienced when we decided to make Aliyah, the number of Conservative Jews from our congregation dumbfounded asking why would we ever desire to go to such a forbidding place. After moving here, we can inform these Jews, though they will not believe us, but they are the ones residing in what is rapidly becoming a forbidding place and Israel is the little wonder of the world.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How to Evict All Religious Jews and Eventually Christians Too

 

The United Kingdom, with the encouragement and urging by Humanists UK, a staunchly atheistic organization which opposes the operation of religious schools; is using Britain’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services, and Schools (Ofsted) to impose the teaching of instruction on same-sex marriage and “sexual orientation” issues as part of their curriculum. The demanding for religious institutions to teach that which is staunchly opposed in their religious doctrines is simply a demand that they close or commit to sins all but beyond forgiveness. They call it the 2010 “Equality Act,” which requires schools to teach “about protected characteristics” including sexual orientation and “gender re-assignment,” knowing full well that imposing these demands will result in these communities leaving the nation, and if smart, the continent and return home to Israel. While the intent according to all official information states that they are targeting unregistered religious schools, but the apparent main and primary target appears to be Hassidic and Orthodox Jewish schools. Using lack of teaching about same-sex marriage and “sexual orientation” issues along with testimony from graduates who have left the community whom they turned to for their tainted recollections are being used to demand that Jewish schools include these sexual and gender education curriculum or face closure. One of the first schools targeted is the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School, founded in 1942 in northern London, which teaches Haredi girls age three to eight and Ofsted insists that these impressionable and very young girls be exposed to education which is directly against the teachings of Torah, the basis and center for Judaism.

 

This is the best spot to quote Rabbi Klein, the director of the Belz Hassidic community’s educational institutions in London, who said, “A school that does not teach a syllabus that includes totally alien, atheistic values could be summarily closed. Ironically, the proposed standards attempt to promote tolerance and respect for some elements of society, while being completely intolerant and disrespectful of our community and our religious principles.” His point is even more poignant when one takes into consideration of the policy’s name, “Equality Act,” which imposes the Secular Humanist religious dogma upon other religions which do not share their atheistic, sexually open, presumed liberated and godless viewpoints. There is not much equality in the “Equality Act,” unless you abide by the “liberated, open and supposedly all-inclusive” outlook in which there are no restrictions on sexuality or gender. The Judeo-Christian schools, seemingly more Jewish schools, cannot teach such curriculum and remain true to their religion. This is an attack on religions, especially Judaism, and is obviously designed to eradicate the Jews from England once again. We might be looking at another expulsion order not so dissimilar in kind to the expulsion of all Jews from the country in 1290 by King Edward I. This expulsion will be performed not through a direct law but the result of demanding that the religious Jewish communities adopt a secular humanist school curriculum teaching their children subjects which their parents would never dare even broach in the home. This is another case of the government knows better than the parents on what their children are to be exposed to and at what age they are ready to discuss these sensitive subjects.

 

The next step would be to make any speech which crosses these subjects in anything resembling rejecting them and referring to them as against religious teachings illegal. This could then be used to restrict the preaching to the flock or even the printing of the Bible, Christian, Muslim or Jewish, and absolutely no speech even in a religious service. Once the orientation wars reach their ultimate point, and that is what is being waged in the United Kingdom, then even reading parts of the Torah would become prohibited as commentary on same-sex relations makes reference forbidding one to partake of such relations and insisting that such yearnings are to be fought by the individual. Torah teaches that one facing this challenge is to be loved and accepted into the community and assisted in living a proper life free from these forbidden actions. The feelings are not forbidden, only acting upon such feelings and even then, only the act of sodomy is technically forbidden. There is a reason behind these guidelines as religion presents guidelines which assist in the formations of families capable of offspring and the raising of these youths such that the result is their being a comfortable fit within their community. These communities are the target of Humanists UK in their drive to erase any religious dogma other than their secular humanist dogma, and as history has shown, it will start with the Jews but it never ends with the Jews.

 

Now let us get into the particulars of the Secular Humanist religion and the attached dogma. The first rule is never admit that Secular Humanism is a religion with dogma and its own list of the unacceptable acts, beliefs, dogmas and other related life events. They adopt purist atheism which must be accepted as the official religious rule with full state provided enforcement. The Atheistic Secular Humanism has a unique primary target which they define as the root of all evils and from which all other blasphemous sacrilege emerged, Judaism. Whenever these groups decide the time has come to attack religious people, they start to impinge upon their worship and study imposing their dogma using the law. This is exactly what this “Equality Act” is and it fits their anti-religious aggressions to a ‘T’. This was covered perfectly in George Orwell’s Animal Farm where it states, “All animals are created equal but some animals are more equal than others.” In the case of Secular Humanism which is the religion of the left, and the further left the more ardent the believer, who are the ones who people government, the George Orwell quote produces something frightening as these are the people who control the regulation engines in most developed nations allowing them to make their beliefs legal and all others not so much. This is exactly what is in motion here, the use of laws and regulations to prevent the teaching of religiously based education which is in contrast to the Atheist Secular Humanist faith.

 

All animals are created equal Quote

 

Before people start asking how we can claim that the majority of government employees are left leaning, please allow a simple explanation which will clarify our reasoning. Let us begin with a conservative government led by actual conservatives. Conservatives currently believe in a smaller government. They are not progressives, though there are some who claim to be conservative progressives, they are not really a conservative but a populist progressive who is less left than those who currently control the progressive agenda. These conservative governments do not often open a new department of the government and very often impose a hiring freeze in order to allow attrition to deplete the numbers of government employees. Before the government reaches a critical point where hiring becomes necessary, there will come an election where a true progressive government is put in place. This will be a left leaning or even leftist government which believes that the solution to all problems is the government and new laws, rules and regulations. Along with this, the left progressive government removes the hiring freeze and begins a large hiring period. This hiring often reaches a government employee level equal to that which existed at the beginning of the former conservative government. The hiring does not stop there and continues. These agencies then are filled with left leaning to leftist employees as the people in charge of the hiring will be a left leaning or leftist appointed by the President or Prime Minister or somebody chosen to oversee hiring by this appointee. Thus we see there are periods of little or no hiring under conservatives and free-wheeling hiring by left leaning or leftist government leading to a left leaning to leftist employee set which appoint similar thinking people to the supervisory positions which becomes an impediment for conservative employees, if some manage to sneak in, from being promoted and gaining any real power. This leads to slanted regulations which, in this case, are anti-religious regulations which promote only the Atheistic Secular Humanist dogma.

 

Conflicting Dogma Between Atheist Secular Humanism and Judeo-Christianity

 

These regulations and laws are always passed under fairness and equality, inclusiveness and egalitarianism, openness and fairness. These are the code words for the discharging an execution of traditional religious thought and belief often making them unacceptable to express in public and in public will eventually be applied to houses of worship. Eventually, this is carried to the point where a few Atheist Secular Humanists will attend services claiming to be new congregants and may even join the Synagogue, Church or Mosque and attend services sometimes with a hidden recording device. They will collect incriminating evidence of transgressing the regulations written to promote the Atheist Secular Humanist agenda over all other religions. When they have sufficient proof that horrid and unacceptable dogma is being promoted by this house of worship, they file a report bringing charges demanding the clergy of said house of worship be brought before some court for their transgressions. Thus far, we are not aware of any clergy serving prison sentences in the Western World due to hate speech or other laws restricting expression of Biblical and Torah expressions incorporated in their faith. Such is not true of the Islamic World where leading other than Islamic religious belief is a risky business where either the State forbids or limits such speech with arrest and potentially brutal treatment as well as the threat of brutality by the public where religious police could decide to dissuade those of other faiths of forgoing conversion to Islam. There is at least one Islamic nation where the practice of any other religion is forbidden under the law and punishable by death.

 

Some might be led to believe that the most “open minded” people who are the “paragons of virtue” are defined as such because they are true adherents to Atheist Secular Humanism. Should they be the most serious of believers, they know something which should be impressed on the rest of humanity and imposed for their own good. This secret is that only Atheist Secular Humanist dogma should be permitted in any modern society because of its acceptance and openness. Of course, any religious belief which contradicts their dogma is considered to be closed minded and exclusive and as such is to be admonished and eventually made to conform to their dogma or be prosecuted. These targeting are used to only initially be used against the Jews and other minority religious populations but in our modern society, the Atheist Secular Humanists feel they have sufficient power that they can legislate and then prosecute every religion which they disapprove. Needless to point out that their initial target remains Judaism but they also include Christianity in their local regions. In all too many places, peace and love are being replaced with openness and inclusion as the magic words for any religion. By openness, they mean accepting of all forms of sexual orientation and all forms of relationships, or as they claim to name it, “families” by which they mean any pair or group who wish to form a family unit. By inclusion, they imply acceptance of all, simply all with no limitations or lines which cannot be crossed except that which they declare to not support openness. Over time Atheist Secular Humanism will be the only religion practiced in many of the world’s major cities and Judeo-Christianity will be relegated to rural areas and small towns. What will be interesting will be what occurs when Islam and Atheist Secular Humanism run headlong into one another as this confrontations will be one of epic proportions.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Congress to Take On Facebook

 

Actually, Congress will be taking on Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Instagram, Vine, Google+, Pinterest, Flickr, and the Internet generally. They are addressing it as the problem that Facebook had the information of thousands of accounts used by another company. But this exact same exchange of personal information had occurred in exactly the same manner with a similar company without any big brouhaha coming about. Why all of a sudden is this an emergency to repair what is being described as a catastrophe? Well, that is easy to explain. The former use of Facebook information by forecasting company who advise political campaigns worked for President Obama and his two Presidential campaigns. This time the company which used the data also worked on a campaign, the wrong kind of campaign, for the campaign of President Trump in the last election. That became a criminal act as it worked to aid a candidate who does not desire to grow government fast enough for the political heavy hitters’ proclivities. These heavy hitters behind our politics do not hold office; they hold the office-holders. These are the people who fund the campaigns of almost every incumbent unless the incumbent did not dance to their music, then they finance the party’s choice in a primary challenge. These are the people whose names many would never recognize unless we sit on the boards of any of the Fortune 500 companies. These are the people that control those boards by the same means that they control our political parties and the Congress and often they have undue influence on the person in the Oval Office. The problem is they have no control over Donald Trump simply because he is the maverick from amongst their group, otherwise he would be one of such people.

 

Congress is now coming to the rescue of the presumed hoards of people demanding that their private information be protected from such misuse as happened when the Facebook information was used in predictions of where the Trump campaign dollars would have the greatest effect and may have assisted his victory. People are absolutely jumping out of their easy-chairs and calling their Congress critters demanding they act. Actually, there are very few people who even care after the initial fabricated uproar over the fact that a Republican used the same methods Democrats use to assist the effectiveness of their campaign. How dare a conservative compete on a level playing-field, do they not know they must campaign in the dark and not use any such predictive information, especially when it came from liberal people’s postings on Facebook. This is the story that Congress is playing out in the media to explain that they are on the case and they will pass legislation which will now protect people’s information on social media, especially Facebook. The Congress is going to do what Facebook had already warned people is something beyond their control. How can Congress pass any law which will make Facebook and other social media perform a function they have already warned is beyond their ability? So, let us take a slightly less cursory look and dive just into the shallow end of this entire situation.

 

Social Media Icons

 

Facebook warned people when they opened their account in their use of service contract that there was no guarantee intended or implied that anything you placed on your account, regardless of the level of privacy you may choose, was not secure and could become public and should such occur, Facebook was not liable in any way, shape or form. Hopefully nobody was shocked or surprised by this revelation. We know that the people who wrote the code for every piece of the social media were not idiots. They likely were amongst some of the brighter people in computer coding and their understanding of the internet and networking and all other things related to these fields. They are definitely far more proficient than any member of Congress and probably more knowledgeable than the entirety of Congress combined as well as the bureaucrats who will write the resulting regulations to fulfill the legislation the Congress passes providing President Trump is ill advised and signs the bill. Still, eventually there will be a President who will be more than willing to shackle the Internet and assist any Congressional legislation through which they will actually end freedom of speech on the Internet. Do not mistake the broad and wonderful sounding words about protecting your information and making the Internet safe and your information safe because they are not even able to prevent others from breaking into the most protected networks the government uses and they have been unable to protect your information they collect and have in the multitude of government networks. The breach into the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was one of the seventeen largest computer data compromises in history, and they are going to protect your information on social media, right! From the article The hackers’ access was so extensive that U.S. officials said they think it is “highly likely” that every file associated with an OPM-managed security clearance application since 2000 was exposed. That was twenty-two-million people’s information stolen from a secure government database. We found other Federal Government data breaches with some of the worst being these three Department of Veteran Affairs with over twenty-six-million exposed, U.S. Voter Database where one-hundred-ninety-one-million exposed, and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had seventy-six-million made vulnerable. For a further list of breaches of Federal Government databases including the State Department and the White House can be found here. I feel much better now that the Federal Government means to secure my data and not the Federal Government desires to secure the Internet from information and other items they find troublesome.

 

The Federal Government has desired to sink their claws into the Internet and grab it by the throat and throttle it such that they can have control over what is allowed onto the Internet. The United States bureaucracy has salivated at each time there came discussions over perhaps finding some means of controlling the Internet which most often took the form of some form of net neutrality for the Internet. This was the idea that every source on the Internet would be required to present both sides of every subject and if they had articles or editorials which preferred right or left wing ideas, then they would be required to have a near equal number of the opposing side or they would be prevented from posting any more articles. This was to be something they were going to force the Internet providers to monitor and enforce. The main means which was often suggested was that the providers were to respond to complaints of lacking objectivity or too heavy a preference for one-sided political commentary. The reason for the enforcement based on complaint was simple and obvious, there would be more complaints against conservative bias than liberal bias which has been proven through previous imposing of net neutrality styled requirements which resulted in liberal imposed censoring. These previous discussions in Congress were heavily opposed by the Internet providers who simply all made the same claim, such an imposition would be onerous and result in their refusing service to all forms of societal and political opinion and news coverage in the Internet simply because otherwise they would need to hire an inordinate number of people to handle such requirements and simply refusing to carry such sites would be the only result. This, they claimed, would rob them of much of their paid usage and virtually all of their free sites. We will now admit out of fairness, BTC would be one of the sites which would be considered problematic and our ability to post and be carried in the United States would be terminated, and since our service provider is in the United States, we would be refused service under the ideas Congress has previously discussed. This discussion in the Congress, they will claim, will be different, they are simply going to make sure that social media will secure your information.

 

So, how can the government, particularly the Federal Government, guarantee to make your information on social media secure? Well, that is what is the interesting item, because the Federal Government does not do anything, they require other people, organizations or businesses to do things. The only thing the Federal Government produces are vague pieces of legislation which begets thousands of regulations produced by a myriad of bureaucrats. This is where we need to investigate what any Federal Government action to guarantee the security of your private information on social media would produce. First, it would put a scare across the Internet with many falling into a great panic with much hyperventilating and excessive flailing of arms while running around screaming, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling.” Then there would come the glum predictions of horrific changes and possibly the death of the Internet or at least social media. Eventually the screaming and running would end if for no other reason, people do eventually tire. Now would come the calmer and reasoned discussions with the wisest heads saying that the best approach would be to try to influence the regulations through lobbying and other means. As the regulations would be presented, the most important reactions would come from the Internet providers and the stockholders of the numerous social media providers. As the reactions to the regulations came in to the different agencies and pressures were applied to members of Congress and the department heads, then the different regulations would be adjusted, revised, retracted or doubled-down telling those complaining to just live with it. When each regulation was hammered out and reached the just live with it point, then the Internet providers and social media providers would have to find some means of meeting these requirements or closing up shop and thus avoiding culpability. Depending on what the consequences are for any and every data breach will be applied, some Internet providers and social media providers would choose to simply pay the price for such breaches and adjust the cost to their advertisers and members accounts which would very likely result in the end of free web sites and social media accounts. This would result in Facebook and the other social media providers losing much of their membership and people would be resorting to e-mail or even turning to some new system which uses radio networks which replace the Internet thus getting around the regulations being imposed on the Internet. There also is the long rumored Internet II which has had whispers for years about it being used by a limited privileged people who received invitations for Beta-testing and has thusfar not been brought to the general public. Even if there is no actual Internet II, should the Internet we currently utilize be overly regulated, then one can bet that a second Internet styled web will be developed and brought into direct competition.

 

Now for what is the most probable result of Congress deciding to make the Internet safe for the people and with guarantees that your information will be kept safe. First item is that no matter what regulations are pressed on Internet providers or social media providers, there will be very little actual changes as business is business and business has always found a means to minimize the problems, interruptions, complications and costs of regulations by some means as business only succeeds by providing their service or merchandise at the lowest possible price and with the minimalist imposition on their target customers. The quickest and easiest means for any business concerning the Internet to minimize the effect and interference of regulations will be altering their terms of service such that they warn that they will not be held responsible to protect you the customer or the advertiser from whatever ills the regulations try to make them be held responsible. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the other social media already indemnify themselves from being legally responsible for protecting the information which you post to their service. They will probably need to adjust the wording and may even need to have every user actually check the box claiming that the new agreement has been read and understood and found to be completely acceptable. That done, they will continue with business as usual until the next time there is an uproar over some conservative leaning company, institution or candidate utilizing the personal information gleaned from social media sites demands that such an unforgivable usage of liberals’ information for political use other than those which they agree with politically. For those who claim that an equal uproar would come from the right or conservatives over liberal or left wing political entities had used stolen Facebook personal information, allow us to point out that the reason that there was a need to use presumed hacked information was because the left has been having access to just this information and was used by Barack Obama in his Presidential campaigns and there was no screaming. Perhaps there is only one regulation to end this entire potential invasion on the Internet, make the information available to all who request such and not just to those with whose politics those controlling the information agree. The only problem with that idea is that it would cause even louder screaming, as that would permanently level the playing field. Actually, it would cause quite a deal of lawsuits demanding access to information and long drawn-out appeals such that the case continues until the election has passed. People controlling information will always do whatever it takes to make sure that only those with whom they agree politically have access to said information as information is power and those holding power wield it to their own advantage, and that is life.

 

Beyond the Cusp