Relatively good

The phrase “and it was good” concludes every act of Creation. Everything is good – including the evil, also a created thing. Everything stems from the divine goodness. Why do we fight, then? Why not accept the good intentions of Arabs who breed to dominate the Land of Israel? One answer is that for Jews the ultimate goodness rests in the Torah, and every opposition to it should be quashed in the name of goodness. On the practical plane, goodness doesn’t matter. Our actions toward Arabs are evil. People pursue self-interest which, in the case of Israel’s right, only incidentally correlates with the divine goodness of Torah. Roaches are not happy when we squash them. They are unthreatening, but merely aesthetically detestable. Arabs, likewise, suffer through no guilt of their own. They are good, but still have to be evicted from Israel for the Jewish good.

Judaism resents hunting because animals have to be killed for food properly, with respect for their lives. Stone Age people enjoyed hunting because it gave them food; modern hunting is recreational. Enjoyment of murder, even of animal, is unethical. There is nothing wrong with Arabs. They lived their lives on the hills which they plowed for generations when Jews came to their country. Naturally, the Arabs fought back – not because of the European Judophobism, but as normal people who resist their country usurped by aliens; it’s a pity that Jews are less normal than Arabs and accept that Arabs breed to become a majority in Israel. Jews have to push the Arabs out and inflict suffering. That’s regrettable, but there’s no choice: as we need food to sustain bodies, we also need sovereignty to sustain our communal body. We “hunt” the Arabs without enjoying it - just because we have to live in a state of our own.

relatively good

chaim

I understand the logic, but your figures are of a really bad taste. Hunting arabs? Any more normal expression? check at Tanach maybe?

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Erick S

I’m good with ‘cleansing’ or ‘purging’, though Israel doesn’t do either.

Joseph

All is good, in the One’s creation. But, naturally, all things cannot be good to all creatures at the same time. Even if the unblemished yearling calf is sacrificed in the Temple by the Levites, this is not good from the calf’s perspective. The calf would eventually die, in any case. The lion, that lives long enough, will lose his teeth, be disposessed of his pride of females, and starve or die of disease. Is it more cruel to kill him, in his prime, in the warriors’ hunt? If deer are allowed to breed unrestrained, with no predators, they produce genetically inferior offspring and die from lack of fodder. What is more cruel? To let the deer breed uncontrolled and starve, or to hunt them, or to introduce lions to hunt them, and then let humans hunt the lions? Yes, all things are relative. But that does not diminish the universal goodness. For everything, there is a season.

As a little child, long before I had read Leviticus, my uncle, very much not a Jew, taught me how to cut the head off of the living fish, while it rested on a stone, and then clean the innards. He use to catch and release, but his mom, my Scotts grandmother, expressed doubt that we ever caught anything, so we started bringing them home to eat. This was “hunting for food”: you cannot buy fish like those you yourself have caught. It is also a skill of the self-sufficient, that young men should learn: not to be dependent on others, but to know God will provide, if one takes an effort. But my uncle was repulsed by the idea of hunting, for a very simple reason: he had experienced combat in World War II. “I’ve seen enough death”, he told me. He could clean a fish for his mom, but there was no way he would hunt any mammal. Nevertheless, he would kill any human that threatened his loved ones. He would kill, if necessary, but with deep regret.

Today, as the weather is getting cooler, and little creeping things come into the house, I saw a little spider scurrying across the floor. I killed him. And I said a little prayer that he be happy in the next world and would understand that this was not personal, and that I didn’t mind him, but that I could not let my house be overrun with his offspring and their more toxic cousins, because then my life would be endangered.

As one who is not a Jew, but is a believer, let me suggest that goodness resides in the One Eternal, but that the Torah is the path given to the Jews to approach, if never quite attain, goodness. God created the Eskimos, yet if they tried to follow the Law, they would, of necessity, starve to death. Surely, this was not the intent of the One. Surely an Eskimo can approach goodness without starving.

I would further suggest, in all humility, that the problem is not so much that Arabs in Israel are reproducing so much, but that Jews are not reproducing enough. What we can do is so much more in our control, than countering our enemies. Make more Jewish children. Is this not the Law?

Ray Bright Subscribed to comments via email

Obadiah,
You keep repeating that we have to kill animals in order to eat.
This is just a myth. In reality we are MUCH, MUCH stronger, healthier and live longer if we don’t animals, and their by-products (eggs and dairy products). Unlike the popular myths vegans have twice the stamina of the meat eaters. If we want to have strong Jewish nation, it will serve us well to stop eating animals and ESPECIALLY dairy. (Majority of Jews cannot even digest dairy.)

Now not eating animals does not necessary mean that we should not kill them. We may still find it necessary to kill rats and other pests.

Likewise in war. We may be forced to kill eat our enemies even if we don’t intend to eat them.
Hatred actually diminishes our efficiency as warriors. A truly great warrior, like some of the most famous samurai’s, were entirely unemotional about killing. It just had to be done, and had to be done in the best possible most efficient way.

All the vegans and their by-products that I have met where quite unstable in the head.
Now wether that is the result of not eating all the things that they should, or wether the instability is the cause of becoming a vegan in the first hand, is a matter of debate.

What I will not debate is the fact that these two go hand in hand.

If vegans were stronger and had twice the stamina as meat eaters, the National Football League would be full of vegans. It is not. There are a few examples of great atheletes who are vegetarian or vegan, but they are very few for a reason. The monks of Shaolin Temple are probably the only group of any size living a vegetarian lifestyle that are truly world-class atheletes. And anyone who followed their constant exercise routine (and celibacy!) would find similar results, whether they ate meat or not. But, as yet, I have seen none of the monks drafted into the NFL. And, while I would not call them “unstable”, they are certainly not “normal” guys.
It is a mistake to confuse the ability to remain unemotional in combat with a lack of hatred for one’s enemy. The great skill involved in remaining detached in a life-and-death struggle is most evident when great anger and hatred do, indeed, motivate the combatants. Musashi should not be confused with Morihei Ueshiba.

That was compelling, Joseph. A well-made point.

I wouldn’t call Shaolin monks ‘unstable’ either. I was referring to the Israeli vegans I have encountered in my life - not one of them can claim to be in the athletic level of a Shaolin monk

Erick S — Thank you. I really agree with your original point, and I think that if the guys at Shaolin did not have the Temple to go to, many of them would probably have to be locked up in asylums. Being vegetarian actually mellows out “agressiveness”. Not good for citizen soldiers, but maybe theraputic for obsessive warrior monks.

But, about my earlier post, specifically that Jews need to produce more children, is there no movement in Israel to do this? The Russians have just set a special day aside for it. And, of course, the Germans made a major “effort” to promulgate the race, just a little while back.

Is there no group in the Israeli government or the private sector trying to encourage (with cash and subsidies) the continued, and expanded, existence of the Jewish race, by conceiving and delivering more little Jews?

Actually, Joseph, the Israeli government DID offer considerable benefits to families who bear many children.

Unfortunately, Arab families took advantage of these laws, so some of them were withdrawn recently.
The other group which multiplies in a considerable rate is the Orthodox Jews. That’s a big issue and I don’t have any accurate statistics, but many of them don’t serve in the military, live in poverty and/or seclusion, and contribute little to the country of Israel.

Other Israelis are fine with bearing 2-3 children, like the rest of the western world. They could never match the Muslim birth rate.

Joseph and Eric,

You are mistaken regarding stamina of vegans.
Take few minutes and Google Vegan Sport Champions. You will find 100s of world records and champions, Olympic Gold medalists, Marathon and Triathlon winners. (Triathlon is the sport requiring more stamina than any other).
You can also look up comparative experiential studies showing that vegans have twice the stamina of meat eaters.
I am aware that most people think just the opposite. The popular belief is “Beef gives strength”. However popular beliefs are not necessarily scientifically true.

Also in war, the nearly Vegan Viet-Cong had many times the stamina of the meat-eating Americans in Vietnam.

Ray Bright — You said “In reality we are MUCH, MUCH stronger, healthier and live longer if we don’t [eat] animals”. Track and field is full of people that can run a long way, but do not have the strength to pick up a wet noodle. I stand by my original contention that if vegans were stronger and had more stamina than meat eating omnivores, there would be many of them in the National Football League, because it is a BUSINESS and WINNING MEANS THEY MAKE MORE MONEY! There is no philosophical agenda involved.

I have no idea where you came up with your B.S. contention about the Viet Cong, but I will tell you this — the US had the war won, according to the VC themselves, until the traitor Walter Cronkite come on TV and said it was lost. The Tet Offensive was a total loss for the VC army, but the US media portrayed it as a victory for them. Cronkite should have been hung for treason. You must have brain damage from lack of proper nutrition.