SHAMEFUL INDEED

"Eleazar said: If the young tell you to build, and the old to destroy, hearken to the elders, but hearken not to the young, for the building of youth is destroying”

Talmud Bavli: Nedarim 40

"Rabbi Lau: Jews will come ‘as one people with one heart’”
(see update at end of article)

"SHAMEFUL DAY FOR ISRAEL AS IT FREEZES PLAN FOR PLURALISTIC PRAYER SITE AT KOTEL": Sunday will go down in history as a shameful day for the State of Israel, another nail in the coffin of Israel’s failing relationship with Diaspora Jewry.” JPost

Another headline reads, "Cabinet also approves Conversion Law giving sole power to Chief Rabbinate” JPost

[me: There is a strong relationship between the two announcements. That being, many *Reform and Conservative children (and some possibly adults now) were born from non-Jewish spouses, or via a conversion that was not in accordance with halacha, but were told they are now Jewish. Rabbi Lau states that “Jews will come….”, yes, they will come if they love Judaism and want to be a ’true’ convert, as many converts have become Halachic Jews, out of the love and respect of Judaism. Why not these (innocent) children born of non-Jewish mothers? Innocent because their ‘leaders’ said it was ok not to observe the laws handed down from Mt. Sinai by Moshe Rabbeinu. Some leaders that spend untold hours studying only the Bible and not the Oral law, and at the same time do not keep the Shabbat that Hashem has commanded of Jews. This is a thorny debate between those who came from *Moses Mendelssohn’s *Weltanschauung and Traditional Torah understanding.]

When Rome destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E., only one outer wall remained standing. The Romans probably would have destroyed that wall as well, but it must have seemed too insignificant to them; it was not even part of the Temple itself, just an outer wall surrounding the Temple Mount. For the Jews, however, this remnant of what was the most sacred building in the Jewish world quickly became the holiest spot in Jewish life. Throughout the centuries Jews from throughout the world made the difficult pilgrimage to Palestine [Eretz Yisrael], and immediately headed for the Kotel ha-Ma'aravi (the Western Wall) to thank God.

According to the Hebrew Bible, Solomon's Temple was built atop what is known as the Temple Mount in the 10th century BCE and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the Second Temple completed and dedicated in 516 BCE. Around 19 BCE Herod the Great began a massive expansion project on the Temple Mount.

[The Kotel] is a relatively small segment of a far longer ancient retaining wall, known also in its entirety as the "Western Wall". The wall was originally erected as part of the expansion of the Second Jewish Temple begun by Herod the Great [. . . .] Wikipedia

"It is time for the historically young (Reform) to join the elders (Halachic Judaism from Mt Sinai)”

The Post articles continue: "The determination by the cabinet to cancel its January 2016 decision to establish a third plaza at the Western Wall for egalitarian prayer services is nothing less than a disgrace. [. . .] "Reform and Conservative Jews throughout the US already feel like second-class citizens when it comes to rituals in Israel such as conversion and marriage. By annulling the decision to create a prayer space that all Jews can is leading this relationship toward an even greater divide.” JPost

[me: These comments are written by the editor of the Jerusalem Post newspaper, a paper read by many Jews (and possibly others) around the world. For the editor to give over misguided opinion about what is Jewishly acceptable worship. The Jewish State has entered history again, after the First and Second Commonwealths, and because Hashem has brought this about, one should view this rebirth as the culmination of a long chain of Jewish History from Yetzias Mitzrayim and Ma'amad Har Sinai, from which the Jewish Nation was given a Torah to live by, which includes the 365 Mitzvot, i.e. Halachos. For the editor to evade this reality is doing a disservice to the readers of the Jerusalem Post. I am sure there are Jews in distant communities that relay of this paper for some of their Jewish education. Is the editor legitimizing Reform ideology? Then he would be in gross error for doing so. Reform is a very recent invention/version of worship by Jews in response to the Enlightenment.]



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Moses Mendelssohn: Mendelssohn wanted to take the Jews out of a ghetto lifestyle and into secular society. He translated the Bible into German, although it was written in Hebrew letters, with a Hebrew commentary called the Biur. He campaigned for emancipation and instructed Jews to form bonds with the gentile governments. He tried to improve the relationship between Jews and Christians as he argued for tolerance and humanity. He became the symbol of the Jewish Enlightenment, the Haskalah. Mendelssohn's own descendents, the most famous being the composer Felix Mendelssohn, left Judaism for Christianity. Jewish Virtual Library 

History of Reform: With the advent of Jewish emancipation and acculturation in Central Europe during the late 18th Century, and the breakdown of traditional patterns and norms, the response Judaism must offer to the changed circumstances became a heated question. Radical, second-generation Berlin maskilim (Enlightened), like Lazarus Bendavid and David Friedländer, proposed to reduce it to little above Deism or allow it to dissipate. A more palatable course was the reform of worship in synagogues, making it more attractive to a Jewish public whose aesthetic and moral taste became attuned with that of Christian surroundings.

Weltanschauung: The German word Weltanschauung literally means "world view”. A comprehensive world view or worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual's or society's knowledge and point of view. (wikipedia)

The Enlightenment: European politics, philosophy, science and communications were radically reoriented during the course of the “long 18th century” (1685-1815) as part of a movement referred to by its participants as the Age of Reason, or simply the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, in France and throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. Wikipedia 

The Haskala (Enlightenment): It believed in the centrality of man to decide his own fate, without relying at all on God, and that man had the ability to solve all his problems. 

"Putting man in the center of the world and not God is antithetical to traditional Jewish belief. Intentionally mixing with the non-Jewish society also ran counter to traditional Jewish values. The corollary idea that emerged, that the Torah could be altered to accommodate itself to the modern times, was a concept that traditional Jews could not tolerate. Rabbi Berl Wein: Impact on the Jewish Community


UPDATE:  Bennett: American Jews are our brothers. 

Unfortunately, Bennett has a big heart but his statement is mis-informed. While they may be nice, somewhat Jewish, somewhat observant, they are al pi Halacha NOT Jewish (if their mother is not Jewish and/or converted under reform or conservative). It is a HUGE shame that their leaders did them such a disservice. One cannot water down Judaism and call themselves Jewish.