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Faflt 4 ~. Tfc« CfliwdfaB JewU Mew», FrMoy, July 22ntf, 19M
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In odvertlsemtnti.
alitah without pubucity
TORONTO RMBI TO ISRAEL
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A young rabbi who has contributed much to the development of Jewish education in Toronto has left this week for Israel. He is Rabbi Moshe Rom, former principal and spiritual head of the orthodox Yeshiva Yesodei Hatorah. Rabbi Rom is settling in Yad Binyamin, a Poale Agudat Israel town, where he will continue to disseminate Torah and Jewish living according to his philosophy.
It is interesting to note that this first rabbi from Canada to settle in Israel is not a Zionist; he never was. At a farewell party, Rabbi Rom explained that, to him, living in the Holy Land is part of the Torah, the fulfilment of a commandment given to the Children of Israel. At the same time, he is aware that one who leaves the North American continent for a country like Israel cannot expect the same economic standard to which he is
NEW DENOMINATION
accustomed.
On this point perhaps the Rabbi has provided some food for thought for those who talk about/organizing Aliyah from North America. Only recently we hear that Immigration into Israel Is dwindUng. This is a serious problem for that country. Ignoring ft is not the solution.
Last week a group of American teachers, mostly orthodox, have arrived in Israel. They know the economic problems facing them yet they prefer living there because of their total Jewish commitment.
Such examples of Aliyah as that of Rabbi Rom and this group somehow should contribute to a renewed discussion of Aliyah—not grandiloquent oratory but serious analysis.
New York Is A Summer Festival
Wronkow.'Aufbou, New York
NEW FRAVDA IIBEI
'LONDON, (JCNS) - Thji appearance^ of an anti Jewish article /In<-Priiivila", the 'Soviet Com-'uiunlsttParty paper, has dl»iulet-"ed.'obtervers. ■./a';; :'-v-''
The article, 2,000 woros long, whleh appeared on June 19, pilloried a Moscow Jewish flat-dweller called R^. Yudelson for making a lot of noise at night and disturbing his fellow flat dwellers.
However noisy Mr. Yudelson might be, his behaviour would hardly seem to rate a long article in the Soviet Union's main dally, with a drculatlon of more than 'five milliou.
However, ^the name of the writer of the article, liya Miro-novlch Shatunovslw Indicates that he is not concerned so much with Mr. Yudelson's activities, as with the fact that he is a Jew. For Shatunovsky has an impressive record of anti-Jewish articles and comments, particularly during the 1948-195J period and, later, during thi series of economic trials in 1962-65.
During the trials, he was on the board of "Komsonoiskaya Pravda" the paper of the Soviet youth organisation, and was one of its most virulent commenta tors.
In 1965 he transferred to "I'rav-da", taking the place of David Zaslavsky, who had died, puli-lishing anti-Jewish articles In "Pravda" even when similar ai-
ticies in btiie/Soviet papers and periodicals showed a market dwrease..'^' ■..;./:.( V There Is no doubt that ftis latest article, appearing as it does in the official communist Party paper, is bound to en courage imitation by editors and officials all over the' Soviet Union., i:;
REFORM
L0ND0N.4JCNS) - An appeal to the World Union "bf Progressive Judaism to approach Qte Seviet Government on behalf of Russian Jewry was made by Rabbi Dr. Jacob K. Shankman, president of the Union (Refprm).'
Dr. Shanionan was delivering the presidential address at the opening session of the Union's 14th international and fortieth anniversary conference at Guild hall and the Liveiy Hall, in the City of London.
The Union, said Dr. Shankman, had hitherto limited its efforts to helping Progressive Jews. "But to. be silent today on an Issue such i as the positi6n of Soviet Jewry would be a moral sin.
"They are not Reform Jews, but in the face of their spiritual obliteration we must cry out 'We seek our brethren.' "
WHY JEWS SUFFER mPlGMTlES
THE LESSONS OF TISHAB'AY
JUDAISM WITHOUT THE SYNAGOOUE
A leader of Canada's Labor Zionist Movement, Samuel Lapin of Montreal, told a Labor ZionistXJamp Dan Seminar .in Prefontaine, Que., according to the Montreal Star of July 11th:
.. One does not have to think of the synagogue as being the l|ocal point of Jewish survival."
The Montreal daily then continues to explain what, according to the national executive director of the Labor Zionist Movement of Canada, is relevant to Jewish life. "What should be stressed, he suggested, are language, literature, cultural aspects, the observance of customs and holidays and the bringing of religious observance into the home. All those things are part of our ethnic identification."
This curious pell-mell called "ethnic Identification" is the newest discovery of those who are engird In "Jewish survival" — in speeches to after-dinner
HUMAN RIGHTS IN ONTARIO
gatherings.
Yet the Labor Zionist leader, while stressing, for example, "language and literature" as symbols of "the ethnic identification" known as Judaism, simultaneously lashed out about specific "Jewish hospitals". Also he declared Jews should stop worrying about "specific Jewish welfare organizations".
It is remarkable how some professional Jews can create an imagetof a Judaism non-existent. For how could religious observance become part of a Jewish home if the synagogue ceases to be the central point of Jewish expression and when "the Jewish community is not essentially religious"? Or are the Labor Zionists creating a neW Jewish daiomi-nation, adding another one to the three main trends — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform?
In the present makeup of the Jewish commimity, anything is possible.
WE MUST WAGE THE BATTLE
The action instituted by our province through the Human Rights Commission against a person who had refused to rent a summer home to Jews—because Jews—is more important a case than the public attention given it. We fully agree with Dr. Hill, the active and energetic head of the Human Rights Commission of this province, who, in an interview with The Canadian Jewish News, said that people discriminated against, especially members of the Jewish COTomunity, are not sufficiently aware of the provincial legislative opportunities and do not bother to help prosecute the bigots.
The battle against discrimination, whether anti-antisemitism or anti-anti-negroism, depends in very large measu^
upon those exposed to these evil prac-
tises. The woman who had refused to rent her premises to a Je^ may not herself have been aware that she not only hurt a citizen but transgressed against the law.
Fortunately in this case those effected by this particular act of religious discrimination were aware of their right imder the Ontario Himian Rights Code. Thus there Is an opportunity to set an example no matter what the outcome of the case per se.
Citizens not only should be engaged In the battle for the right cause and the proper legislation but should exploit every legal avenue to make cert&in that the law Is applied in reducing inter-group friction.
the seven da^s
NEW YORK. (JCNS) - King Feisal of Saudi Arabia has left . the United States, but the con-trovery engendered during Us visit here lingers on. The new phase of the controversy centres around the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and the allegation that three of its mem-htrs had visited. Uie monarch to make an oSteial apology for
the cancellation of the reception in'his honour.
Reports of the Visit were carried in the press tbo day before the departure of King Feisal Three persons were named as having paid the visit. Rabbi Elmer Berger, the Council's execu. live vice-president; Mr. Alfred
Lilienthat and Mr. Benjamfai Friedman. The following day there were angry denials from the Council and demands for retractions from the papers that printed the reporu.
A spokesman for the Council told the JCNS correspondent that the group had never authorised anyone to make an oEBdal apology to the Ung.
BONN BACKS DR. PAULS
'BONN — >The West German (feveromerit backed its Ambassador to Israel, some of whoserecent statements have met with strong criticism therp,;.
Govemnient, spokesman Karl Guenther von Hase told
a news coniFerence that a speech made by Ambassador Rolf Patils recently represented the policies arid interpretations of, the West German Governments Dr. Paids had criticisejcl
Israel's stand on the Oder; Neisse line and asked Israelis to put aside memories of Germany's recent bijito-ly. He hadValso said that Germany was not in need of rehabilitation.
"Th« Templt woj destroyed ba. catt of coustltsi hatred" — Talmud.
The moimtain fortress of Masada on the western shore of the Dead Sea is now open to visitors. By ascending the tortuous "Serpent's Path" for hundreds of feet one finally reaches the summit, the last outpost of Jewish independence from ancient time's until our day.
This impregnable citadel held out for three years after Jerusalem had fallen to the Romans and the Temple had been burnt. When finally the Romans entered, they found a city of dead, for the defenders had killed each other rather than be captured alive. | Masada is therefore a monument to Jewish heroism it is also a memoriiil to a Jewish tragedy induced by a major weakness in human natm-e, to which our people seems particularly prone,
Indeed, the entu* war against Rome, in which Ma sada was the closing episode testifies to this defect. To be sure, historians assign many reasons, political, social, economic and military, for the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Second Jewish Commonwealth, and the nineteen centuries of exile and persecution that followed. '
Traditional Judaism does not necessarily deny the validity of factors such as these.
It insists, however, that fundamentally the catastrophe is the consequence of Israel's own moral deficiency. In the words of the Prayer Book, "Because of our sins we have been exiled from our land."
The Tahnud goes further and points to one transgression in particular: "Why was the Second Temple destroyed, seeing that men occupied themselves with the Torah. the Mitzvot, and the practice of good deeds? Because sin'at hinnam "cau seless hatred," was rampant among them. Thus we learn that causeless hatred is equiralent to the three major sins of idolatry, im-chastity, and murder" (B.
JEWUSALEM ^ "rhe He-
mf^sectipri of Hth^^ / Knesset foction accepted ■ the resignatiottof Menahem
Begin as the chauinan of
tfeieGahal faction and riam-' ed Dr. Yohariari Bader to
replace hioL . Under the agireenient of
naJuin Begb^^ Chair-
mariship bi^ the Gahal ':fa^ tion! rotates.: evc|ty,; three months between >a 1 Herut M.K."and a liberal. Dr. Eli-meleh Rimlat'of th^ Liberals iji now Chairman. ' y^; It was also announced that Diab Uijied of the Align-irieritr--. affiliated Arab has been, coopted to < the
Coalition Execiitive. This is the first time that an Arab' M.K. has been a memtier of this • body. -Mn Seif-a-db Zu'abi represent; the Arab list on the Alignment faction foecutlve. \. • Yaacov Merldor was to h^d the Herut repladng MenacUm Begin
Yoma 9b).
A Tahnudic tale makes the same point. An inhabitant oif Jerusalem once arranged a feast.. Living in the .city were,two men, one called Kamza, who was his friend, and the other called Bar Kamza, his enemy. The Jerusalemite sent his servant to bring Kamza to the banquet,' but the servant in error invited Bar Kamza histead.
When the host found his enemy in his home, he asked him; out befoire ihe entire ,^Uicring. ; Bar Kamza' pleaded to .be permitted to^remain. offering to pay for his meal, and more:, bill the host: was
.Or. GdidlAVl'rafetM^ of Biblical StudlM at th* Jtwbh Theotogleol Stmlnory N«w Yoric , . . V."n«ha B'Av en . TuMday eom-nmnoratM a gitat calamity in Jew^ lih hIttMy — and alio a tragic Jiwiih waaknui.
adamant and the guest had to leave.
Bar Kamza, bitterly hurt, said "Since the rabbis were present at the feast and did not protest, it means that they acquiesced in my disgrace". He then denounced them to the Romans and reported that the Jews were preparing to rebel against their authority. As a result, the Temple was ultimately destroyed (B. Gittin 55b-56a).
Obviously, the ra'obis of the Talmud were not so naive as to attribute the major calamity of Jewish history to a personal feud. Through this tradition they were imdcr-scoring the folly of 'causeless hatred", its powerful grip on men's $ouls and its boundless consequences for evil in men's lives.
"Causeless hatred" does not mean hatred without cause. On the contrary, those who are guilty of this vice are strongly convinced that they are thoroughly in the right, that there is "an issue of principle."
Insulated--by self-right-eousnessi the practitioners of hatred regard it as a virtue, leshem shamaylm. "for the sake of Heaven." That is the principal reason why sin'at blniuun is so deep seated and difficult to eradicate. Actually, "causeless" hatred is hatred without due cause.
The symptoms of 'this malady are easily recognizable — the strength of the antagonism bears no proportion to the iinportance of the issue and the divergences have been so exaggerated as to block out any comprehension of the elements of imity or similarity. Because the effect is not really the result of the cause, the removal of the alleged cause has little impact upon the effect.
In the last decades of the .Second Temple, a succession of Roman procurators, characterised by rapacity, cnielty, and callous indifference to Jewish sentiment, Roused deep antagonism among vktually all Jews. Nevertheless, the incurable individualisiri and independence of the Jew — often an ad^iirablc trait—• prevented the estabhshinent of a unified response' by the Jewish commimity.
, Aside firom the small pro Roman faction, there was a sizable peace party which realized the folly of challenging the'power of Rome and' cqunselled moderation and patience. In the year 66 the war party finally got the upper hand.. Headed by Jobanan of Gush-Halab, the Zealots proceeded to murder ^o other leaders .who had originally launched the revolt,- the former i^High Priests; Hapari and: Joshua, son of Gamla. Even this purge did 'not restore unity within the ranks of.the rel^s. As the siege wore on and the Roman .vise tightened u pbn the doomed city,: two other
abated until West European Jewry itself was destroyed.
Evehts of few centimes later demonstrated the truth of the sardonic observation that the only thing that men learn from history is that they learn notiiing from history'. In the ei^iteenth century. Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov and his followers created the Hasidic movement. Then- rabbinical opponents, the Mitnaggedim, unable to recognize the vitalizing influence of Hasidism, fought the new sect with all the vigor at their command.
The great rabbinic authority of the age, the Gaon
Elijah of Vihia, who abstained from conununal activity in order to dedicate himself to the Talmud, was persuaded to sign an edict of excommunication against the Hasidim m 1772. which was renewed in 1781. Antagonism between the Hasidim and the Mitnaggedim was often carried to the point of physical violence.
The crowning indignity iu this controversy came after the death of tiie Gaon. The leader of the Hasidim in Lithuania was Rabbi Shneur Zahnan, the founder of the Habad sect (Hokmah. Bi-(contfaraed on page 8)
SERMON FOR THE WEEK
• by DR. ROBERT GORDIS
extremist factions, headed by Simon bar Giora and Eleazer ben Simon, arose to opposition to Jobanan.
Incredibile as it seems, even while the Roman legions were "battering the walls of Jerusalem, each of the leaders occupied a dif ferent section of the city and all fought each other, burning the supplies and provisions accumulated by the others.
Undoubtedly, the protagonists of this internecine conflict would have insisted that they were divided on ' issues of principle." But it was sin'at hbmam, hate without due cause" that blinded them to the larger unity that should have bound them together in an hour of crisis. The leaders of the revolt were, in large measure, the architects of their nation's destruction.
Jewish history offers other less dramatic, but scarcely less tragic, instances of the havoc wrought by sin'at hinnam. When the I imcomparable Maunonides completed his great code of Jewish law, the Mishneii Torah, in 1180, it aroused | fierce opposition.
Far more violent were the attacks upon his philosophic masterpiece. The Guide to the Perplexed. The opponents and protagomsts ot Maimonides did not content themselves with arguing the merits of their respective positions. As the controversy grew in bitterness, the| ckead herem, the rite of ex-communication, was mvoK-ed by the anti-rationalists against theu- adversaries.! who responded in kind.
After Maimonides death m 1204, his opponents de-termined to destroy his influence, which was particularly prevalent m Jewish intellectual ckcles root Mid branch. In part, this intransigence demonstrated the tmtSof the old proverb. Wie es slch christelt, so Ju-Scssich. "As the Chris-1 tians do. so do the Jews.
The Church had recently carried out a bloody crusade against tiie Albigensian sect in southern France and suc-J ceedcd m destroying the _ brilliailt civilization of Pro- I gain from them in spiritual terms? vence. In order to stamp out 1. a negative attitude to the high purposes for the last vestiges of the/Al- I which they f\and prevent our synagogues from be-bigensian heresy, Pope Gre- I coming focal points of inspiration. Scant respect, gory IX, in 1233, gave unli- I the .decorum of the morket-pldce, and a lifeless
petty squabbling and bureaucratic control are the order of the day in our synagogue-based communal Organisations. The synogogue Is tbken for granted; jqymen share its temporal honours;- ministers are funttionaries. '
The synagogue must become again the ^ tineeting-ploce of tfie community of souls. If the very fabric out of which it is nidde can be interwoven with-col:.; lective religious consciousness, ( purposeful enthuses iasnri qiid devoted concentration, the synagogue con once more be the valid symbol of moral awareness, call out its strength-giving - message and penrieote the community with fruitful blessings.' ^ - ^
An interesting feature in the structure of the Temple of old was thesfidpe of its windows.-They were tidrrow within '^and widening bu^ In • order ^ to send forth light into the world. When oiir synogo-f gues are copoble, of emitting rays of positive spiritual guidance they achieve their aim. Much is oMr^build-■ .lng;;'^e have yet.to build the House of God.
Legend relates that when the Temple was about to be destroyed a band of priests carrying the Temple keys in their hands ascended the roof and, throvying them up into the skies, they declared. "Master of the Universe! We have proved unworthy custodians. We return these keys to Thee."
Tisha B'Av affords an annual reminder of the true function of a House of God. The purpose of the fast day is not solely to commemorate the multiple tragedy of the loss of Temple, capital city and nationhood. Post catastrophes may be relegated to the pages of history and conveniently forgotten. The underlying spiritual factors which occasioned them always merit consideration. Only those who cbntem-plate the post con recognise the responsibilities which spring from it.
Thus it is not the departed glory of the Temple which we moum; rather the absence of that influence for good which the Temple in its prime was able to exert. Our fasting is not for the destruction of ancient Jerusalem, but because the word of the Lord no longer issues forth from the spiritual capital. Not the exile of a former generation do we bemoan but the reoson why that generation did not deserve to remain. , The Temple of old was the visible expression of a unique spiritual relationship. To be qn effective medium of contact it required the conscious effort of the people to appreciate the values it enshrined. To be inspirational it required their soulful response to the commitments it represented. When the reverence became superficial, the perfomnance of ritual mechonicol, the function static and not dynamic, the Divine Presence withdrew. Before the enemy destroyed the Temple, it had ceased to be the House of God.
Any spiritual regeneration of Jewry in our time depends on the proper cultivation of the Synagogue OS a source of beneficial influence. Can our/'little sanctuaries" be turned into Houses of God? Our synagogues in their outer splendour ore worthy substitutes for the Temple of Jerusalem. What is the
mited power to the Domini can order."
The Jewish opponents of Maimonides ^id not hesitate to denounce his Writings to the Dominican inquisitors and at theh* instigation his books were publicly burned iri Paris. ■ ^ . a',,.\ -.
In 1305, on the Sabbath befoi-e Tisha b'Av, the lead ing labbtolc scholar of. the age, SoltMnon.ibn Adret.'and thUrtyscholais ini,Batcelona, issued a ban forbidding the study of phiiisophy and science, with the exception of ndedicihe, to anyone un-: der ..thirty; The Jberafc; answered with a counteity^ ban. The mutual hqstili^ of bothjactions continued ,uri{
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