Taking It Back

So I was watching Baahubali, the highest grossing movie in India, ever. 

Enjoyed the Bollywood action and pageantry and am looking forward to the sequel coming out this week.

There was one line in the movie, spoken between swordsmen that stood out to me:

“Spoken words and spilled blood can never be taken back.”

Mean and harsh word can cut like a knife and hurting someone with words or deeds, can never really be taken back. 

Sure, we can ask for forgiveness and try to make amends.

But it’s like once you let the genie out the bottle, you can never really put her and keep her back in. 

A veteran recently fought to have a VA hospital in Florida put the picture of the President up instead of the blank frame on the wall they had (some nonsensical notion of resistance indicating “not my president”)–the veteran said about trying to right this wrong:

“It’s like trying to put 5 pounds of baloney back in a bag that only holds 2 pounds.”

People are doing bad things and saying bad these things these days that can’t be just taken back. 

Family, friends, and colleagues–are fighting it out and splitting up.

Each side tells themselves and the other that their cause is right and noble.  

But how much of it is really just brainwashing, hyperbole, and politicking?

While our values as individuals and as a nation should never be put at stake, maybe we could get more done and better by working together than spilling blood–friend and friend, neighbor and neighbor. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The United Nations — As Silent As It Is Anti-Semitic

Another truly lovely (not) rally of hatred and violence by our “peace partners” in the Middle East. 

Check out the size of this guys’ butcher knives for killing Jews with. 

Where is the United Nations? 

According to the UN Charter, the #1 purpose for its existence is: “To maintain international peace and security.” 

But of the 193 member countries in the United Nations–more than a quarter of them–50 are majority-Muslim nations, comprising 1.6 billion people! 

But there is only 1 Jewish Country, Israel, the size of New Jersey. 

Knowing the historical anti-Semitism of the UN, it’s probably about time for another anti-Israel resolution. 

Incredibly, there were 20 of these just last year alone (versus 3 on the rest of the world)!

Yet, the United Nations is consistently deadly silent in the daily face of:

– Knifings, 

– Shootings, 

– Bombings, 

– Abductions, 

– Terrorizing, 

– Destruction of Jewish holy sites and places of worship, and 

– Threats of annihilation to Jews. 

Only 70 years since the Holocaust wiped 6 million Jews–a sick and evil genocide of a full third of the world’s Jewish population–blind hatred, discrimination, and violence against Jews is okay by UN standards. 

What a wholesome failure and disgrace on the United Nations–a body that is supposed to represent peace, security, and justice.

Where is the peace, security, and justice from the UN for the small, minority Jewish people, numbering just 14 million men, women, and children?

The United Nations–as silent as it is Anti-Semitic. 😉

Purim All Over Again

Last night my wife received an email from a very holy woman from our synagogue telling us to pray for G-d to save the Jewish people.

 

This at a time when Iran is on the verge of nuclear breakout capability and has for more than a decade threatened Israel with genocide. 

 

As Prime Minister Netanyahu said yesterday, the threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is a security issue to the U.S. (which has been threatened by Iran, including unbelievably threats to President Obama’s family), but is a survival issue to Israel.

 

The holy lady from the shule reminded us that this is the week we celebrate Purim.

 

This holiday commerates when the Jewish people were miraculously saved almost 2,500 years ago from an evil plot to destroy all the Jews in ancient Persia (and yes, what is now related to modern day Iran).

 

The threat: “To destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.”

 

But for a miracle from G-d through Mordechai and Queen Esther were the Jewish people saved from annihilation. 

 

It is not lost of any of us that now Iran wants to exterminate the Jews once again, in a single day, in a single nuclear strike on the holy land. 

 

The Jerusalem Post astutely points out today that Prime Minister Netanyahu is like Mordechai who recognized the threat of the evil Haman who sought the Jews’ destruction, as well as Queen Esther who spoke truth to this to King Ahasuerus. 

 

Both my mother and my wife are named after the beautiful Queen Esther and so this holiday has enormous personal meaning for me, especially since my family are also survivors of the Holocaust. 

 

Today, we are all praying for another miracle when Netanyahu addresses the U.S. Congress that the Jews should once again be saved from historical enemies old and new. 😉

 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to pixgood)

Reform The Movement

So was very glad to read this week about a top Sunni cleric who called for educational reform to combat “extremist violence.”

Sheik Ahmend al-Tayeb, a grand imam in Cairo said “corrupt interpretations” of the Koran and of Muhammad was leading to a rise of Middle East-based terrorism. 

This to hopefully stem the flow of what is now being reported as 20,000 foreign fighters flocking to join ISIS. 

What is amazing here is that good Muslim people are recognizing the problem with radicalization, extremism, and violence and are speaking out. 

Yet, many of our own leaders in the Western world still refuse to say the dirty words “Islamic terrorism.”

The President saying instead: “No religion is responsible for terrorism–people are responsible for violence and terrorism.“

So perhaps, according to this “logic,” no movement is responsible for what their people do–only the individuals are?

And therefore, accordingly, the Nazis would not be responsible for the Holocaust, nor America for Slavery, nor Communism for political purges, oppression, and violation of human rights, etc. etc. 

…in which case, there would be no apologies, no regrets, no reparations, no museums, no memorials, nothing–because this was just some individuals doing some bad things and those individuals are may no longer even be here with us. 

Doesn’t this ignore the very basic and fundamental fact that when the masses follow a movements’ (genuine or distorted) ideological teachings of hatred, racism, and discrimination, and the people act nefariously on this, then does not the movement itself hold some responsibility for the murderous and evil actions committed based on their doctrine?

The Sheik who denounced terror and called for changes to the education in the Muslim community is recognizing what apparently many of our own leaders refuse to, which is that they–and we–are responsible for what is taught and tolerated in our communities. 

As Peggy Noonan recently wrote, “The reality is that the Islamic State is…very Islamic.

Currently, we are fighting a war on radical Islamic terrorism…whether that terror is committed on Charlie Hebdo, a Jewish grocery store, or the World Trade Centers. 

That does not mean that tomorrow, we are not fighting against some other movement’s treachery. 

This is why good people everywhere must stand up and speak out when they see religions, governments, institutions, or other movements preach and teach lies, hatred, and terror. 

Bad (or hijacked good) movements drive bad actors…so we must not only go after the bad guys, but also hold the movements themselves to account.

We must demand that the lies and distortions be called out for what they are and that truth and virtue be held up in its place. 😉

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Front Page Magazine)

Cuddles Versus Lashes

Interesting juxtaposition of civilizations before us…

On one hand, we have people in the West looking for a hug and cuddle (even if oddly, they think they have to pay for one). 

While on the other hand, Islamist extremists are giving 1,000 lashes (the first 50 of which were proudly given today with more to come in the following weeks) for “opposition” blogging, and terrorists are killing hostages in a kosher grocery store in Paris and gunning down satirists making comics for Charlie Hebdo magazine.

Seems like somehow we just aren’t mentally getting it (or maybe we can’t stop “getting it” from the bad guys)!

Cuddles and lashes will never go together. 

You cannot cuddle a terrorist!

Yet, we ostensibly have terrible difficulty even calling them Islamist terrorists and extremists, even though that is what they are.

They are killing people with AK47s in Paris and bombings in London, hijacked airplanes targeting the World Trade Center and Pentagon, beheading journalists and gassing civilians in Syria, kidnapping women and children in Nigeria, and slaughtering schoolchildren in Islamabad

However, we are and will unfortunately continue to get our lashes from them, as the threats are not gone or dissipating, and the war is not won or maybe has barely even begun–although we are “war weary”.

We must awake from our cuddling stupor and realign ourselves to the mentality of 1000 lashes. 

Appeasement will keep failing as the false thinking and broken promises of those who teach hatred and kill indiscriminately and barbarically will somehow just stop–they won’t. 

Sadly, be ready for the enemy upping of the ante with bolder, more daring, crazier, and deadly attacks.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)