Some Invitation That Is ...

The pattern repeats.  Massacres in France, calls for Jews to "come home" to Israel, panicked French Jews leave in droves.

Ironic it is that on the same Friday that the butchery ensued in Paris, a Jewish father and son were murdered in Israel to be followed by the murders of another five Jews later that week.  So what exactly is the claim of the "come home" proponents - come home so at least you can get killed on holy ground?

Real Mesirus Nefesh

In case you've heard that we can learn mesirus nefesh from the Arabs, a speaker I heard today said, no!

Why?

Because mesirus nefesh is selfless, it transcends reason.  What Arab terrorists do is to gain Paradise.  This is what they are promised and this is what motivates them.

No comparison.

What's the Difference?

The parallels are obvious.

In this treaty the US wants to make with Iran, we are dealing with:
people we can't trust
people known to sponsor terrorism
people who say we are evil.

No different than when Israel makes treaties with:
people they can't trust
people who have tried killing them again and again
people who say Israel is evil and needs to be eradicated.

So why does Netanyahu scream about the treaty the US wants with Iran when he and Israeli prime minister after prime minister, do the very same thing he screams about?

Warding Off Disaster

It's no wonder that we read of the high use of anxiety medication in the US and particularly among the frum population.  I say the following without having done any actual research on this; this is just the sense that I have about changing times.

Although there were always sad stories and troubling world events, the frequency of tragedies and how close to home they reach, seems unprecedented in the past 50 years.  For example, when I was a young adult, I probably heard of Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) but that's as far as it went.  At this point, I've been menachem avel someone's whose brother died of it, the rebbetzin of my former shul is suffering from it, my friend's father died of it, and I have heard and read of several more in the frum world.

Another example, up until ten years ago, I don't think I heard of any child (not talking about an infant) dying in their sleep.  Now I can think of three.

The feeling that something can drastically change for the bad, out of the blue, is reasonable since it has been happening with seemingly greater frequency and to people we know or to people close to those we know.  The Twin Towers coming down, the Har Nof shul massacre, the frequent ads from Chai Lifeline and RCCS reinforce the possibility of a disaster about to happen.

What to do about it? One idea - Rabbi David Ashear is quite popular now.  He does a 4 minute daily emuna message which can be heard on the phone: (605) 475-4799 access code 840886# or received by email: Emunadaily@gmail.com

Let's Take Care of our Own!

So I see the headline, "Ten Year Old Palestinian Boy Saved by Israeli Doctors, Jewish Kidney Donor" and I'm disgusted.  Both by the fact that Israeli doctors treat our enemies (including those who attempt to kill us), and by the fact that a Jewish body was desecrated to achieve this.

It doesn't help that earlier this week there was a news item which stated, "PA President Mahmoud Abbas has made the resumption of peace talks with Israel conditional on the release of roughly 120 “heavy-duty” murderers."

A typical news item of this kinds states:

A Hizbullah guerilla who was moderately wounded in battle early Sunday morning was airlifted to an Israeli hospital for treatment.

Dr. Daniel Shani, executive director of the hospital in Nahariya, said the guerilla arrived in good condition. "He was brought to us by ambulance at around 5:30 a.m., and his condition was, generally speaking, good. He had an open wound in his right soldier," and other shrapnel wounds elsewhere on his body.

With regards to the type of treatment he was receiving, Dr. Shani insisted that it was no different than that of the average Israeli patient. "The ethnicity of the wounded is not important," he said. 
 
Oh really? Rather than being the "am chacham v'navon" (the wise and discerning nation), we make fools of ourselves and put ourselves in danger, solely to garner praise and admiration from our enemies which are not forthcoming anyway.  Let the Arabs take care of their own people in their own hospitals with their own doctors!

There shouldn't be the slightest chance of a Jew being put in danger in order to help our sworn enemies!

"He who has compassion when he should be cruel, will be cruel when he should have compassion"!

As one person put it, "I'm waiting to see the headline: Arab doctor treats Jewish boy." Who is guaranteeing that this child won't grow up as brainwashed as the rest of them and seek to harm those who saved his life?