Attaching tassels to the hems of clothes was impractical, as ancient clothes commonly stretched to the ground. Numbers 15:39 enjoins us to look at tzitzit rather than touching them; they were placed too low to touch or pull, as modern tassels can be pulled. Tzitzit should be attached to all clothes, even at night. The rabbinical interpretation that looking is only possible during the daytime is implausible. Tassels are inconvenient to walk with, and even more so to sleep with.

Jesus accused the Pharisees of making their tassels long; the customary length of tzitzit appears to be short.

Deuteronomy 22:12 introduces a synonym for tzitzit: “Make yourself gdilim.” This rare word has to do with majesty, thus in 1Kings 7:17 it means wreaths. The common meaning of tzitzit and gdilim seems to be fringes; long tassels surely have nothing in common with wreaths. Num 15:38 speaks of tzitzit (singular) on canfei (plural), suggesting a single piece of tzitzit rather than four tassels. The Karaite reading of gdilim as “chains” (thus having tzitzit as plaids) is also possible.

Another hint comes from Exodus 28:33: the high priest’s clothes were hemmed with “pomegranates of blue, and purple, and red” threads. Though it is possible that high priests wore pomegranates while laymen satisfied themselves with tassels, no less likely is that common Israelites also wore pomegranate-like skeins, but only of blue threads. The skeins would be small—essentially knots—but many rather than four.

The same verse speaks of tzitzit of each edge (canaf). That is, if the garment has two bottom edges like a tunic, then tzitzit must be attached to each edge, namely two of them. Deut 22:12 changed that to a tzitzit on (presumably each of) the four edges.

Deuteronomy 22:12 mandates attaching tzitzit to four canfot of one’s clothes. That is traditionally interpreted as “four corners,” and clothes which lack four corners are exempted. In Isaiah 11:12, however, the same phrase refers to four ends of the earth. Isaiah didn’t imagine the earth to be cross-shaped or rectangular, but used the term “four corners” figuratively to denote directions. In 1Samuel 24:4, David cuts the canaf off of Saul’s robe—clearly a considerable piece that David later waved to Saul. In line with its main meaning of “wing,” canaf is a skirt of clothing, loosely its end.

In Samuel 24:4, the robe (meil) has canaf. A similar robe (meil) is described in Exodus 28:31-34, where its bottom is called shulim. The word shulim only comes in plural and seems to mean “folds.” The folds are many, not four: Exodus 28:34 describes their decoration as “round about.” The most expensive robe (meil) worn by high priests (Ex28:34) and kings (1Sam24:4) was likely a single-piece cloth. The meil robe lacked corners but possessed canfot, which therefore must denote bottom edges rather than corners.

At the same time, Deut22:12 attributes four canfot to csut (cf csui), which means any covering, from the covering of the Ark to a poor man’s sackcloth. In connection with csut, canaf can mean “corner,” but for the sake of consistency with other uses of canaf this word should be assumed to mean “edge.”

Num15:38 relates the commandment of tzitzit without mentioning the four canfot. Every instance of the commandment is presumed to be intelligible on its own. It is unlikely that the lawgiver omitted an important detail. The mention of the four canfot is merely a metaphor for “along the bottom edges.”

If such diverse clothes as sackcloth and high priest’s clothes possess canfot, then modern clothes likely possess canfot, too. Deut 22:12 concurs, using csut to relate the widest range of applicable clothing. The only restriction possibly implied by Deut 22:12 is that canfot should be attached to covering rather than just any clothes—that is, to the outermost piece of clothes. Num 15:38 speaks of a still wider range of applicable clothes: bigdei, any clothes, though most commonly outer clothes. By the time Deuteronomy was recorded, the inconvenience of attaching fringes to all clothes had become apparent, and Deuteronomy sensibly clarifies that the commandment is limited to outer clothes. It is wrong to limit the tzitzit only to garments which have four corners.

The rabbinical insistence on four corners created a need for tallit, a special piece of clothes with the required number of corners. It also conflicted with shaatnez commandment, a prohibition of wearing linen and wool simultaneously: woolen tassels are commonly attached to linen tallit. Sages recognized the problem, but instead of admitting that their tassels are incorrect, they lifted the shaatnez ban in this particular instance.

Mishna Kiddushin 1:7 exempts women from time-fixed commandments, including wearing tzitzit. The rabbinical law is ostensibly meant to free women for household work. That nonsensical approach flies in the face of the Torah, which addresses the commandments to the entire congregation. It is because the Torah speaks in masculine gender (a mixed gender in Hebrew) that we can be sure that women are under the same yoke as men—and must wear tzitzit. Rashi accepted women wearing tzitzit and ruled they must say blessing when donning it. It is unlikely that ancient women wore tunics, since a tunic reveals one’s legs. Women’s clothes lacked four corners, but likely included tzitzit.

It seems superfluous to discuss the connotation of bah in Deut 22:12: cover [yourself] in it. Though modern people don’t usually cover themselves in clothes (bathrobes and long coats are rare exceptions), the commandment clearly relates to any suitable clothes.

Tzitzit fringes are made with enigmatic ptil tekhelet.

Ciseh—to cover (with a tzitzit garment)—is related to cisa, throne. Tekhelet, blue sapphire, the ancient for lapis lazuli, the color of God’s throne. That traditional reading is supported by the etymological meaning of tekhelet, the color of dark-blue sunset sky.

Exodus 28:28: patil tekhelet is sufficiently strong to wear as a breastplate. Here patil is a noun. In Genesis 38:25, patilim is a plural noun. Numbers 19:15: tzamid patil alaiv—cover bound to it; here patil is used as an adjective.

Patil is an object made by a specific method, seemingly by twisting. Patil seems to be braid rather than thread. It should be put on the fringe (Num15:38) which does not quite imply plait into (betoh), as the tradition has it. Plausibly, the patil blue braid runs horizontally across the fringes which are attached throughout the bottom edges of garments. A horizontal blue line is consistent with the tradition of tallit: it has specifically horizontal lines which, according to some commentators, are reminiscent of the patil.

Fringes are not necessarily white, but can be of any color. They are not necessarily woolen, but being an extension of the garment, the fringes are of the same textile as the garment.

Tekhelet was available in quantities large enough that a high priest’s meil robe and various ritual clothes were fully dyed with that color. In Exodus 35:6, tekhelet is implied to be widespread among Hebrews, who are enjoined to bring it as an offering. The commandment to attach tekhelet fringes to each cloak would impose hardship on Hebrews if the dye had been produced in minuscule quantities from shellfish, as rabbis assert. The production of dye from shellfish presented a problem of kashrut, because shellfish is non-kosher, and extracting considerable amounts of shellfish meat could tempt the workers to eat it. Hebrews in the Sinai would have found it problematic to procure a sufficient quantity of shellfish dye. The dye is not particularly strong, and fades away with wear and washing, necessitating occasional replacement.

A possible source of deep sky-blue dye is woad, known as Asp of Jerusalem. Woad is produced from a plant common to steppe and desert zones, and thus common both to second-millennium B.C.E. Sinai and later to Judea. A chemically identical indigo dye is another possible source: expensive but sufficiently widespread in the Middle East and Africa that Hebrews could afford it.

The commandment to wear fringes with blue braid—the two signs of royalty or affluence—dispels the myth of mandatory Jewish humility.

In 1948, the US revoked its UN vote in favor of creating the Jewish state. Truman slapped Israel with an arms embargo during the war of survival, three years after Auschwitz. When the Jews won, the Americans pushed us to an unprofitable armistice—and did so again in 1956, 1967, 1973, and after various intermediate confrontations.

Why the demand for restraint? I don’t know. It seems totally irrational to me. I don’t think the American politicians consciously subscribed to the balance-of-power game and so prevented Israel from achieving total victory. I imagine the US actions stemmed from moral idealism of the same kind that led the US to tacitly support German re-occupation of the Rhineland before WWII. Sort of the idea that nations shouldn’t be pressed too far, a watered-down version of the balance of power.

In 1973, the Americans prevented Israel from annihilating the Egyptian Third Army. Was it because of the Soviet nuclear threat? Hardly so. The USSR did not threaten the US in 1973. It wasn’t even clear if the Soviets had really shipped nuclear warheads to Egypt. Such a transfer would have run contrary to the Soviet doctrine: Russians never exported nuclear weapons into other conflicts, and removed missiles from Cuba when conflict loomed.

The Russians also kept decidedly low profile in the war, even staging the expulsion of Soviet military personnel by Sadat. Soviet reinforcements for Egypt were a response to the American help to Israel. It seems that America and Russia escalated their support for their clients based on their perceptions of the other side’s intentions.

Besides, a detrimental armistice was imposed on Israel after the immediate nuclear threat had dissipated.

America cared very little about the possibility of nuclear confrontation between Pakistan and Soviet-backed India. It is easy to twist the arms of subservient Israeli politicians, but not of Pakistanis.

Does Israel depend on the US for military resupply? Today, yes, after decades of increases in American aid. Such backing did not exist before the final days of the 1973 war. Israel won all her wars without the US, and the resupply in 1973 came too late and went almost unused. Egypt took the resupply as a convenient excuse to concede defeat, and made it a point of propaganda that it stopped the war not because the Israelis had crossed Suez and were roaming at will at the Egyptian army’s rear, but because of American involvement. Iran similarly rationalized its armistice with Iraq: it was not due to exhaustion, but because of the United States’ downing of an Iranian civilian aircraft.

Israel needs no one’s military help if she resorts to first-use of nuclear weapons. Just make it a law that any invasion will be answered by a nuclear strike. That’s it. No need for American guarantees. And just how many times has America reneged on its promises?

About the importance of American weapons for Israel, that’s another misconception perpetuated by those who want Israel to continue begging for US aid and so submit to the whims of US administrations, or rather to the Jewish establishment which claims to manipulate those whims. The first airlift arrived after Israel had crossed the Suez Channel and won the war, and many days after Israel had stopped the Egyptian advance. Actually, Egypt stopped by itself because they weren’t prepared for a mobile war in Sinai, nor apparently did they plan to strike at Tel Aviv. I believe the Egyptian version, that Sadat only intended to upset the status quo and push Israel to the negotiating table—recall that both Israel and America ignored Sadat’s peace offer in 1972. Back to the point, the airlifted weapons were left unused. And Israel won the Six Day War without asking America for resupply of weapons. Preemption always pays.

The US provided aid to Israel for a single reason: to offset the growing Soviet influence. Egypt, a Soviet client, could not be allowed to win a major war and thereby tremendously increase Soviet influence in the Middle East. America similarly supported anti-communist struggles everywhere, from Korea on, and the aid they gave to Israel was very small compared to American expenses in other conflicts. If America was so concerned with Israel’s survival and the justice of her wars, why did the US impose an embargo on arms shipments to Palestine during the ideally just War of Independence? Also, the US announcement that it would supply weapons to Israel came immediately after the Soviets announced their aid to Egypt. After the Soviets declared a nuclear alert, the US did likewise. It was an incremental spiraling of the conflict between superpowers, with Jews being only pawns.

Perhaps Kissinger wasn’t bluffing when he said that Israel wouldn’t receive a nail if it preemptively attacked Egypt. That only testifies to how weak the purported American bond to Israel is. Charles de Gaulle famously put away the photos of Soviet missile installations in Cuba presented to him by Kissinger, saying that France would support America no matter the proof. America’s standard of support for Israel is much, much lower. The US would apparently have let Egypt destroy Israel with Russian support if Israel had attacked first. The US position is still more bizarre because Egypt had actually launched the war formally a few days earlier by closing the Tiran Straits, an international waterway, for Israeli shipping—a legally accepted casus belli. The Kissinger anecdote also condemns Israeli generals who spend tremendously on an army which depends on ongoing resupply from foreigners for even a short preventive war. Among the cowardly Israeli generals, even the “hawks” advocated attacking the Syrians rather than the main Egyptian force—even after Israel had received incontrovertible intelligence of an impending Egyptian attack. Israeli preemption wouldn’t have succeeded anyway, because of the secret deployment of Soviet SAM batteries near the Suez Canal. It is a miracle that we did not preempt and lose all our aircraft.

The American support for Israel in the UN is meaningful only compared to the entirely anti-Semitic Russian and European voting. Unlike those anti-Semites, America simply acts with minimal decency. Condemning Israel for genocide, apartheid, human-rights violations, and aggression is a libel so obvious that it just won’t fly with American public opinion. American cooperation in the UN buys Israel just a little time. Thus, during the 2006 Lebanon War, the US Administration quickly backed down from its original position that Israel is entitled to destroy Hezbollah, and accepted the European position on immediate cease-fire.

Two-letter root cells form three-letter root cells by two major methods. One, combining two two-letter root cells where the second letter of the first cell and the first letter of the second cell are the same: bet-reish (cleanness) + reish-aleph (standing above, thus, seeing) = bet-reish-aleph. Two, adding a third letter to two-letter root cell. The further down the alphabet is the third letter, the lighter is the action: nun-shin + aleph (move), hey (dislocation), iod (loan), caf (bite), lamed (fall), mem (breeze), kuf (kiss), reish (bird), tav (exhale).
Two-letter root cells are semantically meaningful and seem to follow a similar pattern of decreasing intensity the further down the alphabet is the second letter: aleph-vet (to give birth: av—father, aviv—spring, beginning of the year), aleph-gimel (to bind: aguda—wisp, egel—drop), aleph-dalet (to raise: ed—steam, adon—master, the raised one), etc.

The root structure is artificial. Hebrew roots were consciously constructed rather than evolved naturally.

Words in the Torah commonly have multiple meanings. No large extra-religious texts in Hebrew survived from antiquity, and it is often impossible to reconstruct the meanings precisely from various contexts. We know how the sages understood the words at the time they translated the Torah into Greek, but they might not preserve the original meanings.

The correct approach to understanding the Torah is etymological. As long as the root meaning makes sense, it should be used. Whether the sense derived from the root meaning complies with exegetical requirements is unimportant; exegesis should follow etymology. Whenever several meanings are equally plausible etymologically, the most common meaning should be assumed.
The common approach to the Torah is to put exegetical requirements first, and then see if the required meaning of a word is plausible, or even remotely possible. Given the scarcity of ancient texts, a wide range of meanings is at least remotely possible, which often allows for wild exegesis. The etymological approach puts a stop to that misreading.

Consider Genesis 1:1. Bereshit is universally translated as “in the beginning.” The primary meaning of reshit is main, principal.

Several instances of reading reshit as “beginning” are dubious. Genesis 10:10 says, “And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh…” It is odd that several kingdoms are named one beginning. The phrase makes more sense if we substitute principal for beginning: The enumerated towns were the principal places of that land.
Proverbs 8:22-23: “The LORD made me [wisdom] as the beginning of His way, the first of His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” Such reading presumes that the account of Creation omits the immensely important episode of creating the Wisdom before other things. More plausibly, “The Lord made me [wisdom] his principal way, put forward [distinguished] from his acts of the old. From the old time, anointed from the head, from the eastern [types of wisdom; sf. Is2:6] of the earth.”
Leviticus 23:10: “You shall bring the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest to the priest.” Reading reshit as first-fruits makes the commandment counter-productive: the first fruits are the worst. It’s rather, the choice fruits. Similarly, in Deuteronomy 33:21 it means that the ruler receives the best, rather than the first part of the animals.

For ancients, the terms beginning and principal were related. Firstborns were the principal children; antiquity was equated with authority (time-tested and therefore true, in the absence of other tests for truth). The original sense of reshit as principal was extended to beginning.
Bara is usually translated as “created.” It is a rare word with no cognates. The root cell bet-reish relates to cleaning or choosing. The third letter, aleph, being the first letter of the alphabet, suggests the strongest action. The root cell reish-aleph relates to standing above or seeing.
Etymologically, bara doesn’t mean creation ex nihilo, but rather separation or cutting from something. Sort of like Michelangelo releasing his statues from pieces of marble.
The traditional reading “In the beginning, God created” contradicts the context. Every day, God made a single type of work. On the first day, he made the light; there was no beginning before the first day. When therefore was the “beginning,” when God made heaven and earth? Etymological reading does away with that incongruity.

Genesis 1:2 clearly describes the starting point of Creation: “And the earth, [it] was unformed and void,…. and spirit of God, [it] hovered above the waters.” If God had created the heaven and the earth in Genesis 1:1, how come they are still void in the next verse? Etymological reading makes sense of Genesis 1:1: “Most importantly, God shaped the heaven and the earth.” They were initially without form (Genesis 1:2) and God shaped them—not in the beginning, but in Genesis 1:6-8 and 1:9-10, respectively. (God is external to the World Created rather than permeating it, or he would have had to shape himself.)
Isaiah 65:18 similarly employs bore et with unmistakable sense of re-creation: “For behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing…”
Genesis 1:1 emphasizes the in regards to the heaven and the earth. The Torah makes clear that the universe is not limited to this heaven and this earth

What is the heaven created? Genesis 1:6 describes it as “rakiya inside waters.” Rakiya is often understood as firmament, but it is not. This rare word occurs only in the context of heaven. Lacking a variety of contexts to compare, its meaning can only be reconstructed etymologically. The root cell reish-kuf means “broken, empty.” The immediate cognate reish-kuf-ayn means “to stamp upon,” thus the relevant hiphil flexion, “to spread out.” In Exodus 39:3, the cognate means “to flatten (to empty out),” rather than “to beat [the gold into thin sheets].” That rakiya lacks the sense of firmament is clear from Job 37:18, where the hiphil flexion is joined with dust, or Psalm 150:1, which says, “praise him in the rakiya of his power” instead of “on the rakiya.” Rakiya is a shaped space. The author of Genesis doesn’t espouse the primitive concept of a firm heavenly sphere.
Rakiya is not a heavenly sphere like Aristotle’s spheres. Genesis 1:7: “divided the waters below rakiya from the waters above rakiya.” Rakiya, therefore, spreads from sea surface unto the upper clouds. God created the lower atmosphere.
While Genesis 1:1 insists that the heaven and the earth were shaped, the atmosphere was established (Genesis 1:7). Unlike the other acts of Creation, the formation of the atmosphere lacks the addendum, “And God saw that [it is] good.” A metaphysical explanation is that the heavenly realm is above good and evil. On a practical plane, God is not said to have created heaven, but to have established it from chaos. Only the act of creating something truly new merited the appellation “good.”
The text’s unusual insistence on the prepositions mem and lamed necessitates a stricter reading of Genesis 1:7: “And God established the atmosphere, and divided the waters which are in the deep relative to the atmosphere from the waters which are in the high relative to the atmosphere; and it was so.”
The atmosphere in question is the lower troposphere—the level below the clouds (“the water which is above”). The Bible is clear that clouds are made of water (“water above”) and are very heavy (Job 37:18: “… dust [clouds], strong as molten mirror”). Hebrew etymology of heaven (shamaim) is shm+maim, “there” + “water.”

Wayomer should not be translated as “And he said,” but “And he conceived.”
In Genesis 1:9, ikavu is usually translated, “let them [waters] gather.” In other contexts, kuf-waw-hey always means, “to hope for someone.” Jeremiah 3:17 is properly read, “and all the nations will set hopes onto it [Jerusalem]…” Obviously, the prophet didn’t imagine all nations actually moving into Jerusalem. The waters were directed (“longed”) to a single region. The preposition el also conveys a sense of moving to, rather than statically gathering at.
The ancients thought of the earth as an island surrounded by sea. The land could be called “gathered to one place” but the water was obviously not “gathered in one place”—there are many watery places around.
Makom is not necessarily a geographical place, but rather an area. It is conceivable that waters were directed to heaven in the cycle of evaporation and rain. The water was originally in a chaotic state everywhere—perhaps after a major upheaval—and God first calmed down the atmospheric storms (divided heaven and earth), and later calmed down surface storms, allowing for earth to reappear. Genesis 1:10 disproves this conjecture, explicitly calling the “water gathering,” seas. Genesis 1:10, however, is an interpretative text, employing a newer word, mikveh, which means “pool.”
Genesis 1:9: “And God conceived, ‘The waters under the heaven will be directed to a single area, and dry land will be seen.’ And it was so.”

Naturally and legally, the refugees would be prohibited from entering the United States. Naturally because everyone’s obligation to help is limited; in fact, there is no such obligation at all. Help is commendable while absence thereof is non-condemnable. Legally because every country guards its borders with a visa system. Refugees cannot act criminally: just as they cannot kill border guards and rob stores, they cannot enter the country illegally. Crossing the border illegally is a crime on a par with theft: the migrants steal a valuable franchise—a residence permit.

During WWII, the British prevented Jewish refugees from entering Palestine without visas. Switzerland, the United States, and scores of other countries closed their borders to refugees without visas. Either recognize that policy as criminal and demand reparations from them or accept the harsh legal notion of visas. But once the visa requirement is abandoned for refugees, tens of millions would stream into affluent lands. During the Iran-Iraq war, tens of millions people could have been classified as refugees; Turkey would have been rather unhappy to accept them all.

The process of granting visas separates refugees from economic migrants. Some imagine that Darfurians are refugees; by that token, Dresdeners were also refugees—both started hostilities and suffered from them. But fine, let’s treat them as refugees. But here we have half of Africa streaming into Sinai. If they think themselves refugees—fine, go apply for an Israeli refugee visa in a consulate. No African country borders Israel—the migrants have ample opportunity to apply for visas while in Egypt. Instead, we have here a Robin Hood story: common criminals who pretend to rectify human rights abuses.

Normally, illegal migrants are deported to their home countries. Here we have a situation when they don’t have passports. Any legal proceedings around them are senseless: even in Israeli jails they are far better off than in their home jungles. Leftists have educated the African mob, and they enjoy idleness on charity and governmental funds. Children of African migrants study in Jewish schools: not only do they consume scarce resources (university tuition fees keep rising), but the quality of education declines to accommodate them.

In the worst case, if Israel decides to accommodate the illegal migrants—thus inviting many more of them—why allow them in Tel Aviv, where they occupy bomb shelters which Jews might need badly one day? Drop them in Umm al Fahm, and let Israeli Arabs enjoy their new neighbors.

Where is the UNRWA? Scores of UNRWA personnel are stationed in Israel, and many UNRWA camps are located within Israel and near her borders. Why not dump the Africans in UNRWA camps? This is the very organization which deals with refugees—enjoy. What is the problem with loading them on trucks and driving them into Gaza?

We already have here a hundred thousand Ethiopian Christians and pagans. There is no need for the Jewish state to become a dumping ground for hostile, culturally divergent, economically worthless, HIV-ridden criminals.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews reasonably consider themselves to be the best Jews, and so arouse feelings in secular Jews reminiscent of anti-Semitic sentiment toward Jews. Just as anti-Semites hate us because we believe ourselves chosen—and thus higher than they are—so atheist Jews despise the ultra-Orthodox for their proud superiority. It is obscene that ultra-Orthodox Jews, our religious beacons, don’t pay their dues to society. The Israeli military budget is $5 billion, a thousand dollars per every Jew. Ultra-Orthodox Jews have to pay their share. The anti-Zionists among them cannot argue that they would be at peace with the Arabs if not for the Zionists, who should thus bear the financial burden. Arabs killed ultra-Orthodox Jews even in the nineteenth century, when there was no Zionism, and terrorists kill them now.

There should be a minimal tax obligation for every citizen; no able person must be allowed to pay less. Just as everyone has to pay municipal expenses, so everyone must pay IDF’s expenses.

There’s no need to discuss the point that Arab citizens of Israel must pay lump-sum taxes, too. Rather, they must be expelled.

In Egypt, Moses was a fugitive wanted for murder. The return from Midian to Egypt in order to save the Hebrews spelled tremendous danger for him. But when God told Moses to go back to Egypt, Moses didn’t ask for miraculous proof. True, there was the burning bush, but very few Orthodox Jews would have been convinced by a bush fire. Moses, we can deduce, had faith in God. Not so the pharaoh: he demanded a miracle. The Jews of Egypt sided with the pharaoh and also demanded a miracle: like their modern brethren, they lacked faith. And just like the generation of the Holocaust which refused to move to the Promised Land, no less than 80 percent of Egyptian Jews rejected the Exodus and perished.

Lot believed the angels who came to take him out of Sodom. They offered him no miracles, but he acted on his common sense: the sin around him surely suggested imminent destruction. Not so the great rabbis and pious Jews who refused to leave the Sodom of Exile for the Promised Land before 1941.
Sages have said that God doesn’t perform miracles violating the laws of nature and the Scripture mentions miraculous events only for the sake of their rational interpretation. Every miracle can be explained away, and on the other hand, everything that God demands of us can be deduced rationally, without circus-like miracles.

God performs miracles without violating the laws of nature but by adjusting probabilities. The miracle consists in making the improbable happen repeatedly. When assimilation skyrocketed and the desecration of God’s name reached its peak, God gave Jews the solution. He started the Redemption, proved it with a string of improbable events, and expected us to follow on.

As the ultimate empirical proof of divine action, a miracle is the antithesis of faith. And what miracle do you imagine? When Hebrews crossed the Reed Sea, an eastern wind made the marshes shallow and allowed them to cross on foot while heavy Egyptian carriages stuck in the mud; not much of a miracle, huh? Or would you believe an erupting volcano on Sinai giving you the law? Surely not. Hey, you don’t believe David Copperfield’s miracles, why would you believe any other ones are for real?

Faith involves the readiness to make a leap of faith, to believe that God must have done this or that. And when we see a mass of events so improbable as those which have taken place in the last sixty years, it makes sense to have faith.

Of course we can bring sacrifices without the Temple. In fact, we must offer them even when Levites are absent as, for example, Samson’s father Manasseh did. But Jews should stop waiting for the heavenly Temple—none is forthcoming. Go build one yourself.

Arguably, mixed families with less-than-strict observance are not the best Jews around, but their children can return to Judaism. To strip them of Jewish identity is counterproductive. The practice runs at odds with the historical norm, when Jews married Gentiles and converted them on the spot just before marriage. Joseph married an Egyptian priest’s daughter—obviously, she didn’t convert, but their children started two Jewish tribes.

Rabbis decry missionary work and discourage newcomers to Judaism. There’s no reason to doubt the gospel evidence of pharisaic rabbis being active missionaries. The later anti-missionary attitude is unwarranted: why not spread the message? Rabbis restrict proselytizing in order to maintain a monopoly over the flock: presumably, newcomers are more diverse in their opinions because they lack Jewish tradition. The concern is valid: look at Afro-American “Jews” to see the kind of Judaism we don’t want.
But the diversity problem can be addressed by standard halachic means of different status. There’s a Talmudic ban on proselytes marrying born Jews: only after the converts have proven their adherence for a generation do they become eligible to marry Jews. Orthodox Jews usually set stricter standards and refuse the convert’s descendants for several generations. Despite that rule, it was common for Jewish males to marry local Gentile females and have them converted.

Another possible status for converts is that of God-fearers, semi-Jews who accept only basic commandments—which is still better than conservative Jews today

Of course, we don’t want the entire Sudan converting to Judaism in order to move to Israel. Converts can only be allowed in the West Bank, and also Jordan and Sinai after we annex them. Or, converts and their descendants for four generations might not be eligible for immigration to Israel.
Practical differences can be solved, but we need more Jews. Ethnic diversity is not a problem, as Israel has admitted Arab and African Jews. In the modern world, monotheistic Judaism with a strictly incorporeal God appeals to a huge audience. As faithless Jews leave Judaism, other people can embrace our faith. More adherents strengthen Judaism and Israel, and must be welcomed, even sought.

From the experience of the penitentiary system we know that punishment rarely leads to correction. Even when it does, the person merely abstains from evil behavior, but doesn’t embrace the ways of righteousness. It is impossible to punish someone into doing something.

Punishment can also be intended to reinforce the governing authority, but in order to do so the connection between the authority and punishment has to be clear. Police represent the government, but who can be sure that Babylonians, Romans, or Germans were God’s instruments? The refugees explained their misfortune by geopolitical circumstances rather than divine punishment.

King Solomon advocated the middle way for a reason: too few people can cling to their beliefs in the face of extreme circumstances, whether poverty or riches. Between the sufferings of Auschwitz and the riches of America, many Jews lost whatever small faith they had.

The sufferings imagined for the messianic period just cannot bring Jews to God. Even with the whole world against us and no one to flee to, Jews would still harbor the hope of befriending Gentiles rather than repentance. Which is only natural; a person in dire circumstances seeks the most credible and immediate solution rather than far-flung theological explanations.

Rabbis have written that God regretted creating the exile because it failed to improve the Jews. He might also have rethought the prophetic promise of immense sufferings. Instead of waiting for the final signs of the Messiah—which might not come—why don’t we take shovels and go rebuild the Temple?

Rather, I want Jewish equality with civilized nations. Take the Americans, for example. They fled Europe to a land they had no claim to: neither historical, nor religious or any else. They uprooted and exterminated the locals: sometimes after being provoked, more often hatefully and disproportionately. They murdered and enjoy the inheritance. The settlers of the Occupied United States of America, who stole their land from Native Indians dare teach us morality.

The reality is slightly better: most American people are sensible and don’t care about Jews taking over the land of the Palestinian aborigines even at some cost to the natives. Only American leftists have the audacity to enjoy the fruits of murder and place the onus of morality on Israel.
They claim that the times have changed. If so, be nice and moral yourself and go back to Europe—or to American reservations if the Indians would have you. There are not enough Indians to take over the United States? That’s not your business—you just leave their country. Sinai is also inhabited only sparsely, so why did Carter pushed us out of it to appease his friend Sadat? One percent of Palestinian Arabs live on 56 percent of the West Bank: can we take over that empty land, please?

I would like to see some proof—any proof—to back up the claim that something has changed in human behavior. Apparently, the change did not take place seventy years ago, when Europeans were killing each other and the world was murdering Jews. Nor did the change take place forty years ago, when the slaughter went on in Vietnam. Oddly, there had still been no change twenty years ago, when the United States jump-started and financed a guerrilla war in Afghanistan which eventually took 1.5 million lives; no condolences or reparations were offered. Somehow, the change eluded us five years ago when the United States—not George Bush as a private person—launched an offense against Iraq for no reason, with the predictable result of hundreds of thousands of local casualties. In Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq more than ten million people perished who posed no threat to America. If someone is so apocalyptic as to believe that the natural order of things ends in our days, and wolves lie with sheep without having sex with them—let him test the proposition domestically before enforcing it on Israel.

Perhaps occupation is no longer fashionable? Only for the states which have established themselves already. Even so, Britain still occupies the Falkland Islands and several other offshore territories; the United States occupies Samoa and just fifty years ago helped France to occupy Indochina. But this change is no change: over the ages, states emerged, occupied whatever lands they could, then settled down and ceased occupation. Western powers are in just such a situation. Israel, an emerging state, has to occupy a place for herself like every other state did.

It is also doubtful that occupation is morally inferior to other types of power projection. The Iraqis probably would have preferred a lasting American occupation and eventual annexation to the bloody civil war that America started there.

Maybe there emerged respect for international law? There is no such law in the first place. A handful of high-flown conventions, general principles distilled from ad hoc solutions, and a body of UN decisions are not a law. The conventions are theoretical and constantly violated, the ad hoc solutions are too diverse, and a United Nations in which America and Tuvalu have equal voices cannot produce binding arrangements. Indeed, America itself has violated the purported international law and UN resolutions on many occasions. US vetoing of unfavorable UN decisions does not seem like respect for law. In our case, the Arabs have violated every relevant UN resolution, from the 1947 one partitioning the Land of Israel to the 2009 one ending the fire in Gaza. It is only Israel that is supposed to observe the UN’s decisions. The United Nations includes fifty-two Muslim member states; any court would disqualify itself with such an affinity for one side.

Stripping the Arabs of Israeli citizenship would be without precedent? Ask FDR, who rescinded US nationality from the residents of Philippines. Expelling the Arabs would be illegal? No more than such US actions as expelling the locals from the annexed chunks of Mexico. I don’t want to be rude, but can we have the same rights as our friends the Americans?

Is a strong preference for Jews in granting Israeli citizenship a form of racism? Then start with condemning dozens of countries which follow jus sanguinis, including Japan, Spain, and Italy. Strangely, no one accuses Germany of racism when it grants citizenship to ethnic Germans who have not set foot there for generations. Many countries lack jus soli at all: one can live in Japan or the UAE for generations and still be ineligible for local citizenship; after the first thousand articles condemning Japanese racism are published, I will gladly listen to similar criticism leveled against Israel.

Also, I want permission to hate the Arabs. Open the WWII-era American newspapers: they are seething with hatred toward Japanese and Germans. It is true that many ethnic Japanese and Germans remained embedded in American society—but also there are nice Arabs who are welcome to stay in Israel. It is normal to hate your enemy; it is abnormal when leftists demand that we embrace our Arab enemies. The liberals who condemn our hateful speech would better read their own diatribes against Israel, which are full of hate. Far from being immoral, hatred is an amoral tool: hating your good neighbors or your implacable enemies is very different thing.

Do we have a right to define Arabs as enemies? Ask first, could Americans define Afghans as enemies based on merely one attack, the 9/11? Or could they make the Vietnamese into enemies and legal targets, despite the absence of any threat from Vietnam? Palestinian Arabs have attempted and carried out more attacks on Jews than Native Indians ever did on the European settlers in America; thousands of attacks are planned annually. Maybe modern Americans are full of guilt for cleansing a country for themselves. Maybe. I will accept being burdened with guilt two hundred years from now; that being said, can we now proceed the American way?

When I get to Hell, it certainly won’t be because we carried out the biblical commandment of cleansing the Promised Land. Rather, my wasting time to write this article instead of cleansing the Temple Mount of Muslim presence is what assures my condemnation.

Jewish liberals want to assimilate, but not to become normal in the sense of acting like other nations do. Think of it: if an American Jew wants to assimilate, would not it be natural for him to ask that Israel wage her wars like Americans do? Instead, we’re asked to be suicidally humane. Here lies the answer: liberal Jews do not want assimilation, they sense that despite all of their efforts they remain distinct from Gentiles. Instead, they want Jewish national suicide, to kill the very entity which makes them uncomfortably different. That’s why, of all countries, they marched against Israel and Jew-friendly apartheid South Africa; no Jewish organization marched against Pol Pot. Jewish liberals are anti-Jewish rather than pro-anyone.

But I’m ready to jump on their logic. Jews are indeed normal people, a nation like any other; our only difference is transcendental. Jews must grab the land for their state just like every other nation did instead of agonizing over the natives’ rights. Indeed, the Torah explicitly sanctions our conquests—and no, we do not need a righteous king for that. Some very unrighteous kings of Israel and Judea conducted some very successful military campaigns. It is enough that our aim is righteous, to establish a viable Jewish state.

Liberals love the word shalom and use it as a proof of Jewish peacefulness. There is a surprise in store for them. Shalom does not mean peace, but fullness. It is related to shalal, loot. The idea of peace is alien to the Tanakh: Jews went to war over trivial issues; indeed, it is required to fight over hay if an enemy demands it. Rather, shalom is an ideal of achieving religious and material fullness.

Peace with some Arabs who happen to migrate to the Land of Israel is not a legitimate consideration. Nor is it sensible. Sephardi Jews are much more different from Ashkenazis than the West Bank Arabs are from their Syrian brethren. If “Palestinians” are entitled to a state, why are Sephardis not? Russian Jews are still more distinct—should we have a third Jewish state for them, too? Arabs have twenty-one states, Muslims—fifty-two; do they desperately need a Levantine statelet? There is no desire for justice here, but a basic desire to extinguish the Jewish state. “Palestine” must be Judenrein—all Jewish settlers must go, yet Israel must accept a third of its population Arab. Palestinian sovereignty over a handful of villages becomes more important than a defensible border for Jewish state. We did not attack the Arabs, they attacked us. Wouldn’t it be just to allocate Israel defensible borders and at least a token depth of defense? Americans trust God for their banknotes; could we trust him when he promised us defensible borders from Suez to the Red Sea, and from the Mediterranean to Iraq?

Rabbi Meir Kahane often repeated that all the Arabs in the world are not worth a fingernail of one Jewish child. This saying of his was well within halacha. Theology and nationalism deal in absolutes: to God and themselves, Jews are absolutely more important than their enemies. It’s not that N Jews are more valuable than M Arabs, but less valuable that 1,000*M of them. Theologically, we are entitled to kill the largest number of Arabs to save the smallest number of Jews. Secular nations think likewise: in WWII, the Allied commanders sought to kill as many Germans as possible and to save the American soldiers’ lives whatever the concomitant losses among the Nazis. Jews need not be ashamed of practicing the most human of all human traits: killing enemies, in the widest sense and in the largest numbers, is far preferable to dying or endangering your own people. And more than that, it just feels great to see your enemies dead.

As King David remarked, the righteous should wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.