Body vs. Soul: Differing Perspectives

An intriguing lecture by Rabbi Manis Friedman from the Bais Chana Women International website.

There’s the reflexive way we look at life – the way the body perceives life – and then there’s the way the soul looks at life. To view the world through Jewish eyes is to view the world through the perspective of the soul. Time 9:46
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The Soul

Lyrics of the song Neshama from the album of the same name by Mordechai Ben David

A stranger adrift in an unfriendly land
Of mountains, tundras, and sand
To enrichen the lives in that wasteland is his goal
His name is Neshama, soul

From a mountain came a gift of the only true life
Sinai now stands for bloodshed and strife
When rifles fall silent and tanks cease to roam
The victor will then be the soul

Blackened and charred like a synagogue burned
Lies a tank lifeless and overturned
Four heroes within snuffed out like a coal
But forever and ever and ever alive is their soul

Are PETA the new Nazis?

History repeats itself with anti-Jewish propaganda.

How Genocide Was Made Acceptable to the Masses

On November 10th, 1938, the Führer made an important speech to the German press. Although he made no direct reference either to the Reichskristallnacht itself or to Jews in general, the whole speech can be regarded as his comments upon the lack of support for the pogrom he was getting from the German public. Hitler rebuked the propaganda makers for not having understood his strategy - aiming at war - and he made it unmistakably clear to his audience what exactly he expected them to do in the future:

Coercion was the reason why for years I only talked about peace. But gradually it became necessary to condition the German people psychologically and slowly make it grasp that there do exist things that one has to solve with violent means when they cannot be solved by peaceful means. To do so, however, it was necessary not to make propaganda for violence as such, but to elucidate certain events of foreign policy to the German people in such a way that the inner voice of the people by itself slowly began to call for violence. Accordingly, it meant to elucidate certain events in such a way that totally automatically the conviction would gradually evolve in the brains of the broad masses: What one cannot solve with fair means, one has to solve with violence, because it cannot go on like this.

The rebuke was certainly understood by Joseph Goebbels, who for the first time decided to use the film medium as a tool for inducing anti-Semitism into the German people. Being responsible for Nazi film production he had, however, earlier preferred other topics (including easy entertainment and more "positive" presentations of Nazi world view) , but immediately after Hitler's speech he called upon the production companies to present scripts for anti-Semitic feature films. His wish for a "documentary" could only be fulfilled after the Campaign in Poland in September 1939, because he lacked footage of Jews actually looking like the Nazi stereotype of the Jew, of services in the synagogue and of ritual slaughtering.

From his diary as well as other sources we can follow the production of this particular propaganda film - "Der ewige Jude" - which right from the beginning was intended to become the ultimate public legitimation of anti-Semitism, in accordance with Hitler's afore-mentioned demand.

There are strong reasons to believe that the film and its production history should be characterized as a mirror of the decision-making process to launch the Holocaust itself, because the final version of the film can only be interpreted as a deliberate call for annihilation, through it's juxtapositioning of ritual slaughtering - staged as cruelty to animals - and Hitler's notorious prophecy of January 30, 1939.

In order to create the strongest effect on the public as possible Joseph Goebbels had ordered ritual Jewish slaughtering to be filmed in the Lodz ghetto, and when he saw the rushes of these scenes on October 16, 1939, he wrote in his diary:

Scenes so horrific and brutal in their explicitness that one's blood runs cold. One shudders at such barbarism. This Jewry must be annihilated.

He showed the scenes at Hitler's dinner table on October 28, 1939, and those present "were all deeply shocked." Two days later, Goebbels himself went to the ghetto of Lodz - and commented on his impressions in his diary:

It is indescribable. They are no longer human beings, they are animals. It is therefore no humanitarian task, but a task for the surgeon. One must make cuts here, and that in a most radical way. Or Europe will one day collapse from the Jewish disease.

Goebbels pursued this idea of a genocidal solution during the whole production of a film which can only be seen as his personal advocacy for prevailing on Hitler himself to draw the "natural" consequence of his own - exterminist, yet still theoretical - ideology. The film was recut, rephrased and tested several times in accordance with Hitler's wishes before the Führer finally approved the film for public screening, probably on May 20, 1940.
- An excerpt from a paper presented at the 27th Annual Scholars' Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA, March 2-4, 1997 by Stig Hornshøj-Møller, Copenhagen, Denmark http://www.holocaust-history.org/der-ewige-jude/tampa-19970302.shtml

PETA Accuses the Jews of Cruelty

After receiving complaints alleging violations of kosher and federal law at AgriProcessors, a massive Iowa slaughterhouse that produces Rubashkin's, Aaron's Best, and Iowa's Best meats, PETA wrote to company officials and asked them to take steps to make certain that cruelty was not occurring. We suggested that the plant hire Dr. Temple Grandin, the country's leading slaughter expert, who has helped advise on matters of kosher slaughter systems, to advise them on how to avoid some of the worst abuses. AgriProcessors had its attorney, Nathan Lewin, write back to us asserting, "Kosher slaughter is being conducted in accordance with the letter and spirit of Jewish law, which prescribes the most humane treatment of animals that has been known throughout human history." The tone of the letter was not persuasive, so we took a look ourselves.
-From PETA's GoVeg website http://www.goveg.com/feat/agriprocessors/index.asp

PETA claims the video, posted on its Web site Tuesday afternoon, shows repeated acts of animal cruelty at AgriProcessors Inc. in northeastern Iowa. The organization filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday that alleged improper slaughtering practices. "They're ripping the tracheas and esophagi out of fully conscious animals, dumping them out of pens into pools of their own blood. The animals stand and bellow and attempt to escape for up to three and even four minutes in some cases," Bruce Friedrich, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said late Tuesday.

But Rabbi Chaim Kohn, the plant's supervising rabbi, told The New York Times in Wednesday's editions that the tapes were "testimony that this is being done right." In kosher slaughter, the animals' throats are sliced with a razor-sharp blade, intended to cause instant and painless death. Jewish law forbids stunning them first. Federal law considers properly conducted religious slaughter as humane, and allows Jewish and Muslim slaughterhouses to forgo stunning. But the rules outlaw leaving animals killed that way conscious for an extended period of time.

The PETA Web site describes the videos as showing AgriProcessors workers ignoring "the suffering of cows who are still sensible to pain after having their throats slit by the ritual slaughterer." In it's complaint, PETA said its investigator filmed the slaughter of 278 animals, 25 percent which remained conscious "for a significant period of time." "I think we should attempt to ponder how we would feel in similar situations. The level of cruelty is absolutely outrageous," Friedrich said. PETA told the Times that a volunteer was hired at the plant last summer and used a hidden camera to obtain the footage.
- From an article by the Associated Press on Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140117,00.html

What the Officials Say

The United States Department of Agriculture, with which we have a very cooperative working relationship, supervises this slaughterhouse and has found nothing amiss in its practices. Its on-site inspector, Dr. Henry Lawson, has confirmed to us his opinion that the conditions there are humane and that the shechita method of slaughter employed there renders the animal insensate.
- Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU Executive Vice President http://www.ou.org/other/5765/shechita65.htm

PETA's "Holocaust on Your Plate" Campaign

When "Holocaust on Your Plate" was originally launched, we knew that it would be emotionally charged and intellectually provocative. Even if we had used more conventional tactics, people don't like to have it pointed out to them that they're causing unnecessary pain and suffering by eating meat. We did aim to be provocative. We did not, however, aim simply to provoke.

Hard as it may be to understand for those who were deeply upset by this campaign, I was bowled over by the negative reception by many in the Jewish community. It was both unintended and unexpected. The PETA staff who proposed that we do it were Jewish, and the patronage for the entire endeavor was Jewish. We were careful to use Jewish authors and scholars and quotes from Holocaust victims and survivors.
-PETA President Ingrid Newkirk http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/5475.htm

Scene from Nazi propaganda film of Jews being cruel to animals next to scene from PETA propaganda film of Jews being cruel to animals. Can you tell which is which?

The Cosmological Argument

A logical proof of G-d's existence based on Duties of the Heart by Rabbi Bachya ibn Paquda

Summary:

1. Every finite being has a cause.
2. Nothing finite can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, there must be a first cause which is not itself an effect.This is called G-d.

Explanation:

1. Every finite being has a cause.
If it is finite, that means that it began at some point in the past. That means that something caused it to begin.

2. Nothing finite can cause itself.
It cannot cause itself because this would be accomplished either before it existed or after it existed, both of which are impossible. It cannot cause itself before it existed, because it did not exist yet to effect the cause. It cannot cause itself after it existed. It was already in existence at the time and so nothing was accomplished thereby.

3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
It is not possible for something infinite to have parts, because a part is defined as a fraction of the whole.
If a part is removed from an infinite object, then it will be less than it was before. This remainder will be either (a) infinite or (b) finite.
(a)If the remainder is infinite, than this infinity is less than the previous one. Infinities cannot be one greater than the other, for infinity is always greater.
(b)If the remainder is finite, and the part which is removed is returned, then the sum will also be finite. This is a contradiction and therefore false, for we said that the whole is infinite.
Therefore, anything that has parts must be finite.
In a causal chain, each cause is a part of the chain. Therefore a causal chain must be finite. It must have a limited number of antecedents, which end at a cause that has no cause before it.

4. Therefore, there must be a first cause which is not itself an effect. This is called G-d.
There must be a beginning to the causal chain of every finite thing, since every finite thing has a causal chain which does not go on forever. This beginning must be infinite, or else it, too, would require a cause.

That means that it is infinite in time, existing eternally without a time at which it began, as well as space, not having any component parts or a delimited region that it occupies. Since it caused all finite things, being all the objects and properties that we know, it therefore has the ability to effect and exhibit all objects and properties, and since it is infinite, it can do so in infinite measure. This includes the property of intelligence. The first cause exists to a greater degree than other things because it's existence is inherent and not contingent on the existence of anything else, whereas the existence of all other things is contingent on it and so merely provisional.

Mob Rule

There is an excellent article in the New York Post about the Arab-Israeli conflict. It points out that Fatah and Hamas are merely a bunch of mobsters. Their brutally murderous conduct since they were given control of Gaza proves that. It is now painfully obvious that they are utterly incapable of their own state. They have made a stronger argument against any kind of Arab autonomy in Israel than any of their opponents ever could. Here's my favorite part of the article:

Gaza is Judenrein - emptied of all Jews, just as Hitler dreamed Germany would be. No Jews live in Gaza. No Jews patrol Gaza. It's Jew-Free-by-the-Sea, with a charming Mediterranean coast worth billions of dollars in tourism and trade.

So what's the problem? The problem is that the Jews weren't the problem. The problem is that the Palestinians are the problem: They are drenched in an ideology of blood and murder and suicide.

The sooner people learn this, the sooner we can stop them from murdering more people.