Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Aleksandr Bovdunov
[REGNUM] More than 500 Jewish activists were arrested in the United States for seizing one of the Capitol buildings. This was stated by the Jewish Voice for Peace
| ... an American far-left, overtly Jewish organization banned by Israel because of its strident support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign. They like to call themselves the Jewish wing of the Palestine solidarity movement, which sounds much nicer than what they are, given that the Anti-Defamation League considers them too radical. NGO Monitor lists a few of its financial backers here... |
organization, the initiator of the protest in the American capital, which caused a lot of noise last week. Let us recall that on October 18, activists protesting the bombing of Gaza broke into the Cannon Building, the oldest office building of the US Congress. They were wearing T-shirts with the words “Not in our name.” The attire of many was complemented by the attributes of religious Jews: a tallit veil, a kippah and tefillin - boxes with texts from the Torah, tied on the forehead and arm.
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Formally, the seizure of one of the Congress buildings and a protest march, where 10,000 people took part, had a completely secular basis. They protested against the oppression of Palestine. But the Jews protested. It would seem that these are just leftists.
Leftists around the world have traditionally supported Palestine. “Jewish Voice of the World” is an organization that does not hide its “left-wing” political orientation; among its founders is the philosopher Noam Chomsky . Why shouldn't Jewish socialists and internationalists support the oppressed people?
But these leftists are wearing yarmulkes, the organization is based on the principle of belonging to the Jewish ethnic group and it has a council of rabbis, most of whom are interested or involved in Kabbalah. So, everything is a little more complicated.
However, there is a code Kabbalistic phrase that explains what is going on here: “tikkun olam” - “gathering of the world.”
These two words have become a kind of password for American left-liberal pro-Palestinian Jewry. They also explain the deep foundations of Zionism, which the Jewish Voice of Peace protests against. And many of the Orthodox Jews turn to them, who, like their left-wing brethren, do not accept the state of Israel.
COLLECTORS OF LIGHT
In the mid-16th century, Kabbalist Isaac Lurya developed an original metaphysical concept.
In it, the creation of the world was explained by the “compression” of God. In the resulting void, “vases” of ten Kabbalistic Sephiroth are stacked, which are filled with divine light. However, the vases cannot withstand the light and break. Light pours into the God-forsaken world of “shells.”
In order to gather light, the Shekinah, the divine presence, aka the Jewish people, is sent to this world of demonic entities and peoples (goyim). His task from now on is to gather the light and restore the world to its pristine paradise state - “tikkun olam”.
Then the end of the world will come, the Shekinah will return to its place (sephira Malkut - “Kingdom”) and the king promised to Israel, Mashiach, will come.
Thus, in the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria, the expulsion of the Jewish people from Palestine received a new and lofty meaning. The Jews were thrown out of their home not only to repent before God, as the Talmud said, and to passively wait for the Messiah. They are called upon to collect the divine light scattered in the world. This was worth the wait and patience.
Some, however, were impatient.
In the second half of the 17th century, Shabtai Zevi, a Jew from Smyrna, declared himself Moshiach and led the movement of thousands of Jews in the Levant and Europe. Shabtai Zvi promised that the Turkish Sultan would give him Palestine, from where he, Mashiach, would rule the world. Instead of Palestine, Zvi was sent to prison, after which he converted to Islam under threat of death. Shabtai was not the first Jewish false messiah, but his actions were the first to be justified in the light of Lurianic Kabbalah.
Kabbalist Nathan from Gaza stated: Shabtai Zvi committed a “holy sin” and decided to descend to hell to become the king of demons and collect divine light from the very bottom of creation. "Tikkun olam."
Other followers of the false messiah believed that the actions of Shabtai Zvi should be repeated.
Light must be collected among Muslims and Christians, go to them, while simultaneously committing a “holy sin”, so that later with your holiness (and the Jew is always holy) and the fullness of the collected light, destroy kingdoms and faiths and bring about the coming of the Moshiach.
This was the opinion, for example, of Jacob Frank , a representative of the European branch of Sabbatarianism, who converted to Catholicism in the Austrian city of Lemberg in 1759. Then the newly baptized declared: “I came to Poland to destroy all religions, all laws.”
As the famous researcher of the Jewish tradition Gershom Scholem shows, the Frankists quickly moved from words to deeds: they took an active part in revolutionary events in Europe, and also influenced the Jewish Enlightenment - the Haskalah and the formation of reformed - liberal Judaism.
Two trends were clearly evident in Sabbataiism. The first is the rationale for the descent into hell, to the “goyim” in order to collect light (mystical power, knowledge, values), restore the world to its heavenly proportions, and build heaven on earth. The second is the idea that if Moshiach does not come, the Jews themselves must become Moshiach or prepare a place for him; the expectation of the Messiah can be active.
Jewish mystics took a different path, founding the religious movement of Hasidism in Podolia in the first half of the 18th century.
For them, Isaac Lurya was also an authority, but they understood the gathering of divine light differently - as an internal, mystical process in which a special role is played by the figure of a spiritual teacher and at the same time the poles of the divine presence in the world - the tzaddik.
"TIKKUN OLAM" IN RELIGIOUS ZIONISM
In the 20th century, the concept of “tikkun olam” - “restoration of the world” - came from Kabbalah to politics in an open form.
First - in Zionism.
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook , founder of the modern Chief Rabbinate of Israel in the 1920s, stated that the restoration of the Jewish state served the purpose of "tikkun olam".
Rebbe Kook interpreted Lurianic Kabbalah this way : the essence of Judaism is the dialogue between man and God arising from Jewish monotheism. This dialogue takes place at two levels - the level of the individual and the level of the people. Judaism before the destruction of the Second Temple developed the idea of dialogue between God and the people. Christianity and Islam developed the idea of dialogue between man and God. Sparks of Jewish light - monotheism - scattered throughout humanity, and Jews scattered throughout the world.
The creation of the State of Israel is the collection of these sparks and the restoration, healing of the world - “tikkun olam” - first at the level of restoring a full dialogue of the people of Israel with God, with the state and the Temple, and then at the level of gathering the rest of the nations around Israel.
After which, according to the logic of Jewish doctrine, the end of the world must come.
The most radical branches of religious Zionism are now organizations advocating the restoration of the Jerusalem Temple, destroyed by the Romans 2000 years ago. They believe that for Israel to have a full dialogue with God, a Temple is needed.
The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques, revered by Muslims, now stand on this site. This means they need to be demolished. And first, cleanse the place of filth.
This requires the sacrifice of “a red heifer without blemish, without defect, [and] without any yoke” (Book of Numbers 1-10). The heifers have already been removed with the help of American radical Protestants from Nebraska and Texas. They have their own reason: they believe that by doing so they will bring the end of the world closer, when Muslims, Jews and Russians will fight in the Holy Land, and the Americans will ascend to heaven (Rapture).
"RESTORING THE WORLD" ON THE LEFT
Liberal Jews in America interpreted “tikkun olam” differently.
During World War II, Jewish educator Alexander Dushkin identified the idea with "social service" and the promotion of democratic ideals. “Tikkun olam,” in his words, is the ongoing task of reshaping the world “as a child of God and a partner of the Almighty,” facing the Jew “as a child of God and a partner of the Almighty.”
In 1949, the representative of liberal American Jewry, Rabbi Abraham Feldman, put it even more clearly : “the establishment of the kingdom of God,” “social justice, the Kingdom of God on Earth.”
According to Rebbe Feldman, the Kingdom of God on earth was facilitated by the creation of Israel.
But the more radically minded “enlightened” Jews did not agree with him. In the 1980s, representatives of the Jewish left in the United States founded the New Jewish Agenda, whose platform stated : “We are Jews who firmly believe that authentic Jewishness can only be complete through serious and consistent attention to tikkun olam (fair ordering of human relations and the physical-spiritual world).”
A fair ordering of human relations required the creation of a Palestinian state, protection of the environment, upholding the rights of sexual minorities, etc. One of the most influential representatives of this trend is Rabbi Michael Lerner, who is close to the US Democratic Party, and publishes the magazine Tikkun.
Both left-liberals and religious Zionists, although they are at enmity with each other, have much in common. They, like the Sabbataiists once did, believe that the wait for Moshiach should be active, the Jewish people themselves must transform the world - in fact, act as a collective Moshiach, perform “tikkun olam”.
The main disagreement is only what is considered divine light and where to collect it - among only Jews or among all nations, and what the Kingdom of the Messiah will be - a global left-liberal kingdom of “justice” or a Jewish national state that will rise among other nations.
ORTHODOX ANSWER
However, there are people among Jewish believers who are sure that both are in a hurry.
These are, as a rule, ultra-Orthodox Jews. Formally, they are now in the same ranks protesting against Israel as the liberals. However, their reasons are different.
Thus, the organization of ultra-Orthodox Jews “Naturei Karta” (“Guardians of the City”) opposes Israel as such, no matter whether it is “fair” to the Palestinians or not. Israel should not exist at all, because the Zionists committed the same sin as the heretic Shabtai Zevi: the sin of pride and arbitrariness, they equated themselves with God, deciding that they could return to the Holy Land before the coming of Moshiach, “to hasten God.”
But it is not Mashiach that will come to such people, but the wrath of God.
According to the leaders of Naturei Karta, the Zionists violated three Talmudic commandments: not to rebel against the peoples of the world, not to hasten the end of the world, and, finally, not to return together to the land of Israel.
Similar views are held by another religious community, much larger than the Naturei Karta, although it is less often remembered - the Satmar Hasidim (named after the city of Satu-mare in modern Romania). There are more than 100 thousand of them, making them the largest Hasidic community in the world. For comparison , the most famous Lubavitcher Hasidim are 20,000.
Satmar Hasidim live primarily in the United States and are engaged in the diamond business. And this largest and richest community of Hasidism considers the State of Israel illegitimate.
At the beginning of the last century, the founder of the community, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum , ruled that Zionists were violating the commandments of the Talmud by rebelling against non-Jewish authorities and trying to conquer the land of Israel by force. Therefore, the Satmars, even living in Israel, refuse to deal with this state. For example, they don’t take shekels in their hands. And the most radical ones are confident that only the destruction of Israel will open the way for the true Moshiach,
For this part of the Jewish people, Lurianic Kabbalah and “tikkun olam” also have meaning, but as an internal activity, not politics. After all, Isaac Lurya taught that until all the sparks of divine light are collected, Mashiach will not come.
***
The protests of part of the Jewish community against Israeli policies and even against the existence of Israel as such demonstrate that there is no monolithic “world Jewry”, no matter what anti-Semites think about it.
The differences here are not just at the level of specific politics, but of metaphysics, the very meaning of existence of the Jewish people.
Everyone is sure that they are entrusted with a special mission in this world, somehow connected with the idea of completing world history and establishing a special messianic era, but there is no agreement on what exactly this mission should be expressed in, where and how to look for the lost light of the Sefirot.
And in this fragmentation, paradoxically, lies the strength of the Jewish people.
A hundred years ago, the stars of world geopolitics aligned in such a way that, thanks to the support of first the British and then the American empire, one group of Jews came forward - the Zionists.
However, even if Israel disappears from the world map with the decline of the United States, the Jews will remain.
| Not in Israel, they won’t. As we saw on October 7th, without Israel there will be nothing to keep Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and the Moslem Middle East from fertilizing the soil “from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea” with the bodies of the seven million Jews who currently live there. There will still be Jews, to be sure, almost all of them in America, but Israel will be Judenfrei. |
Moreover, many of them, some in a hat and lapserdak, and some in a hippie-looking yarmulke and with a rainbow flag, will say with satisfaction: “Well, we warned you!”
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