Commentary: Reflections On Yom Teru’ah 5783 (Rosh HaShanah HaRabim 5784)

 Long ago, someone alerted me to Page 251 of “The 9/11 Commission Report”. Once I found out and fully processed that I am among the “‘Jews, not necessarily the United States’” that the perpetrators of 9/11 targeted, I realized very quickly that Jews in the United States and elsewhere cannot be (as the saying goes) shirking violets. Regardless of individual religious, political, and other backgrounds and beliefs, Jews (whether in the U.S., Ukraine, or elsewhere in the Jewish Diaspora, or in ‘Eretz Yisra’el) need to look out for each other and those around us. For starters, as we enter the seventh month of 5783 (which some will observe as Rosh HaShanah 5774), let us do what יהוה commanded those of us in the Diaspora through Yirimiyahu hanavi: “seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the LORD for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” (Sefer Yirimiyahu 29:7, JPS 1917)

On September 12, 2001, the Jewish communities in New York and other trauma-affected cities sought the cities’ welfares—even though we Jews (whether or not we knew that we are Jewish) were the main victims, whether indirectly or directly (and many Jews were direct victims of 9/11, with Danny Lewin, ז״ל, being the first victim). Resigning to injustice, hopelessness, and dying should therefore not be an option 22 years later. As Yom Teru’ah 5783 comes up, let those of us whom are Jews in the United States seek the welfare of the cities in which we currently reside as we sought particularly the welfares of New York, Shanksville, Pennsylvania; all cities in Arlington County in Virginia, and other directly-affected cities in 5761 (also right before Yom Teru’ah in that year). Let us raise a teru’ah (shouting) to the God of Israel to bless and keep especially all Jewish communities in the United States during the Yamim Nora’im. Let us raise a teru’ah to the God of Israel to bring shalom to U.S. ally Ukraine, and to bless and keep especially all Jews in Ukraine (whom are facing hostility that is born of the same Antisemitism that Jews in the United States faced. Both the Russian government and the perpetrators of 9/11 have made their Anti-Israel sentiments known over the decades, and Vladimir Putin intends to harm especially Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Jews in Ukraine.). 

As we wish others “G’mar Chatimah Tovah b’Sefer HaChayim” (“A good sealing in the Book of Life”), let us work to bring tzedek v’tikvah v’chayim v’refu’ah (justice and hope and life and healing) within our own lives and the lives of those around us—including those within our communities (both our local Jewish communities and the gentile communities among which our Jewish communities happen to be). 

P.S. Let us also raise the old teru’ah, “Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim!” (“Pray for the shalom of Jerusalem!”)

The “Trad”/“Chad” Culture Quickly Is Resurging Its Ugly Head In Every Domain (For “Business Announcer”)

 For whatever reason, I got a Signals magazine in the mail today. When I was flipping through the magazine, as I have been able to buy from them in the past (as poor people with disabilities are able to buy nice things once in a while if they get the opportunity to do so), I quickly determined that I’m probably not going to buy from them for a while at the very least (and permanently at the most). What caught my eye is what should catch Signals the flak that they deserve: 

The misogynistic shirt alleges, “A fancier title and elevated status with every new generation? That’s the definition of heaven!”

If Signals wanted to insult women whom cannot have children (including women whom struggle with infertility) as well as women whom have chosen to not have children for whatever reasons, they have accomplished what they wanted to do. They seem to have picked up their cues from the likes of Matt Walsh, Andrew Tate, and Luke Rockwell—the latter of whom demonstrated exactly why many men are going to Southeast Asia to find women and girls. Both they and the three aforementioned men (one of whom can be reported for hate crimes and the other two of whom are currently under investigation for rape) are therefore demonstrating that the troubling phenomenon that is known as (among other names) “trad”, “chad”, “theobro”, and “red pill” culture is bleeding over into every domain of society, 

Notwithstanding that the “theo” is not the “Theo” whom they claim to follow and that their pills are actually sort-of Ying-and-Yang combinations of arsenic and cyanide (as arsenic can be black in color and cyanide can be white), the “trad”/“chad”/“theobro”/“red pill”, etc. people are pushing a dangerous black-and-white pill that makes them more intangibly dangerous than the pushers of excess OxyContin tangibly are. When OxyContin is prescribed correctly, and to actually alleviate pain, it can be helpful to the person whom means it for pain management. The same cannot be said (and in fact, the opposite can be said) for that pain-causing black-and-white pill that is deceitfully coated with red coloring.

Just as the pushers of OxyContin were sued for aggressive marketing and fraudulent prescribing (as the government had to get involved because of the scope of the OxyContin pushing), the “trad”/“chad”/“theobro”/black-and-white pill pushers need to be boycotted, sued, and prosecuted for hate crimes. (By the way, select “Civil Rights” and then “Hate Crimes” if you report Matt Walsh and John Lekach for targeting Julia. Unfortunately, you can select only one demographic category because of which Julia was targeted. Because Julia was targeted primarily due to her gender, I recommend that you select “Gender”. Given that the Internet spans multiple jurisdictions and John Lekach conspired with a U.S. citizen to target another U.S. citizen, a “United States v. Matt Walsh and John Lekach” would not necessarily violate the 11th Amendment. Also, Matt Walsh and John Lekach targeted Julia to target all single 20+-year-old women whom have no children; and they obviously targeted multiple American women alone in using Julia as a proxy target.

(As far as Costa Rica—as John Lekach makes publicly known that he committed his hate crime from there, and the FBI will be helped in knowing when they investigate him and Matt Walsh—Costariqueños will have to deal separately with John Lekach as a Costariqueño—as Americans have enough to deal with in putting even legal attention on attention-obsessed Matt Walsh. Besides, the 11th Amendment would prohibit the U.S. from prosecuting John Lekach as a Costariqueño, although he could be prosecuted for conspiring with a U.S. citizen to target another U.S. citizen because of the multijurisdictional nature of the Internet and X’s status as a U.S.-based company.)

Signals and its fellow black-and-white-pill pushers thus need to be put on cultural, economic and legal notices that misogynistic traditionalism should and will only lead them to isolation. At best, their misogynistic traditionalism should and will isolate them from American, Costariqueño, and other spheres of business and society. At worst, it should and will lead them to lawfully-punitive isolation in square cells on the sphere known as “Earth” (as it has led Andrew Tate and Luke Rockwell, and will hopefully lead Matt Walsh and John Lekach).

Quick Personal Update—and a Few #ThrowbackThursday Pictures of Reilly

For two much-better-looking subjects, meanwhile…

 

And one of whom is the spotlight-ambivalent-yet-attention-wanting pup with the ever-curious mind…

The Fruit Won’t Change Until the Root Does (Commentary For “Business Announcer”)

 

As you might remember if you followed the coverage of “United States v. Maxwell”, the four U.S.-politics-involved people are Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, the late senator John Glenn (D-OH), and RFK, Jr.. All four of these men and other men willingly raped young women and girls—whom are, like other women and girls, known to be the primary targets and victims of sexual abusers. That sexual abuse and other abuse are gendered crimes is all too well known, and the prevalence and severity of sexual abuse will not decrease until women and girls begin to be viewed as human beings and not (at best) subhuman or humanoid objects for men’s pleasures or (at worst) not human at all.

Conversely, violence with guns will not decrease in prevalence, or severity until guns are viewed as tools for provision (e.g., the hunting of turkeys and deer) and the defense of self and others. Especially courageously in the faces of those whom worship guns and exploit the Non-White communities to do so, a Black sheriff in Florida stated the following after the murders in Jacksonville:

As others and I have said over the years, guns are not gods that have wills of their own, let alone gods that demand sacrifice known as “gun-control laws”. In contrast, God has commanded us to not hate our fellow human beings in our hearts and to not murder. Besides, God created the human beings whom He gave the ability to create objects such as guns. Yet, as reflected in sins like sexual abuse and hate crimes, humanity has objectified humans and humanized objects. Therefore, until we acknowledge the humanity of fellow human beings and responsibly use the objects that God gave us the ability to create, we will continue to see commissions of sexual abuse, racism-based murder, and other sins that stem from objectification of humans and humanization of objects. 

The only way to change the fruit, so to speak and as it were, is to change the root. A hateful tree bears hate-born fruits such as misogyny and racism, and trees such as the American electorate continue to bear fruit such as the election of misogynists and racists to office. No investigation into human trafficking or strengthening of hate-crime laws (let alone instead of cover ups for sexually-abusive politicians or weakening of the Second Amendment) will occur. 

Change the root. Be a tree of life, not a tree of death. Bear good fruits such as acknowledgement of fellow humans’ humanity and responsible use of objects, and don’t bear poisonous fruits such as objectification of humans and humanizing of objects. Then you will get even a fruitful American government that blames the human criminal for crimes against humanity instead of blames the object that human criminals misuse.

Commentary: Not a Monarchy, And Nonetheless In Need of a Head of State Like the Following (For “Business Announcer”)

 (Author’s note: I always keep the original form of my commentary here in case what I write gets lost in editorial or SEO translation.)

If only more candidates for POTUS were like the following queen of the United Kingdom, whom left her throne to behold God on His throne almost a year ago: 

Even though I find myself glad that the United States is a constitutional federal republic, I cannot help but note that few of its heads of state (whom have also been its heads of government) have ever been this humble. I also cannot help but note that few of them have deliberately been cognizant of the fact that “public servant” means “one who serves the public”. I additionally cannot help but note that most of them have deliberately attempted to redefine “public servant” as “one whom the public serves”.

I see the “one whom the public serves” description all too happily self applied by the current POTUS (albe that he at least was legitimately—and nonetheless embarrassingly—elected. I also see it applied all too happily self applied by aspiring successors of his—including Trump (and God forbid if he is legitimately elected this time). Of course, I see it applied to the majority of self-declared Republican candidates, and many of those candidates have either worked for Trump (e.g., with Nikki Haley being his UN ambassador and Mike Pence being his VP), aspired to work for Trump (e.g., with Chris Christie having vied to be his VP), or defended Trump against just prosecution (among them being Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott). 

I have noted that the (openly-)Democratic equivalents include RFK Jr. (whom is, none too surprisingly, riding on the name of his equally-Antisemitic grandfather, uncle, and father) and, as aforementioned, the current POTUS (whom, in one of the presidential debates of the 2019-2020 election season, proudly proclaimed, “I am the Democratic Party for right now…I approved the Democratic Party platform.”

(Meanwhile, I ascertain that RFK Jr.’s uncle—along with  his father, whom eagerly worked as JFK’s attorney general—would vilely tout Biden as a “stuff of legends”. Not much has changed from Kennedy to Biden to Kennedy, after all.)

Only God, then, can help the U.S. elect a head of state that is an American equivalent of the late Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, a head of government (and a head of state) that is a modern equivalent of George Washington (including—unlike Trump, Biden, and the Kennedys—a friend of Israel), and a true conservative (unlike, e.g., pseudo-conservative populists Trump and Ramaswamy). Only God, therefore, can help the U.S. elect a true public servant and not a Machiavellian whom the public serves.

PS Of the current Republican candidates, Will Hurd and Asa Hutchinson (both of whom have consistently disavowed and refuted Trumpism) are whom I would like to see God bring to the top of the GOP candidate tier. If God doesn’t bring either Will Hurd or Asa Hutchinson to be the GOP nominee, I will exercise my right to vote and vote my conscience as I did in the last two elections—I will write in John Kasich. Even if my vote doesn’t count in the eyes of fellow Americans, it does count in the eyes of God.

Commentary: Censorship, Personal Responsibility, and Freedom (For Business Announcer)

 Most of the times in which one requires censorship come on an individual basis. As Tanakh (the Old Testament) states, even a fool can be considered as wise and perceptive when he or she hold his tongue and keeps his or her lips together. Tanakh also states that only the fool denies the existence of God. 

Meanwhile, the First and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States allow (among other freedoms) the freedoms of religion, speech, and protection from Constitutional abuse of human rights (including the rights to religious and expressive freedom). Therefore, the conservative views (or at least should view) censorship as exercisable by the government on only a necessary-evil and case-by-case basis. In other words, the conservative views (or at least should view) censorship as firstly and foremostly an exercise of wisdom-born personal responsibility.

Conversely, of course, hold the leftists (whom practice the political religion of Leftism and give bad names to well-meaningly-misguided liberals). The leftists believe in at-will censorship by leftist leaders so long as the leftists leaders uphold even pseudorights—including the pseudoright for especially female-identifying men to invade female spaces (e.g., women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, and women’s sports divisions and academic tiers). By believing as they believe and imposing such beliefs on others (including their liberal counterparts, whom are often caught in the left-of-center’s middle), they abuse the Constitution under the guise of upholding the First and Ninth Amendments. 

Also conversely to the conservative uphold the libertine kind of libertarians. They believe in say-and-do-anything libertarianism, even at the expenses of themselves and others. They therefore don’t care how they destroy their own reputations in how foolishly they speak of themselves and speak to others, and they don’t mind destroying the spiritopsychological health of others in speaking foolishly. 

At least some of them end up doing the work that many conservatives paradoxically try too painstakingly to do. By not even remotely censoring themselves, let alone considering the impact of their words on others, they end up making themselves case studies in the value of “Nature’s God” and the wisdom of  “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” After all, they demonstrate the contrasts between death and life, oppression and liberty, and hedonism (the pursuit of happiness at the expense of others) and genuine happiness (the pursuit of one’s own and others’ happiness). 

Case in point: “Jewish atheist” Vanessa Zoltan denies the very God whom brought her grandparents out of the German part of the Holocaust (even though, by her own account, she also “grew up around” survivors of the Russian and Middle Eastern parts of the Holocaust). She even admits that Atheism is in fact a religion that predicates itself on denying the God Whom delivered Jews from Germany (and Russia as well as the Arab & Arabized Middle East). She goes even further by denying the Jewish roots of Christianity at best, and she self-hatingly blames Jews (including Jewish Christians) for the past seven centuries of global problems.

In doing so, and with pride in proselytizing spiritopsychological distress, she exposes the God-defying and abusive nature of Atheism about which conservatives have warned for decades. The following only touches on how she does so—and obviously without being censored by either herself and anyone else: 

“ I'm a chaplain and so I see myself as one of the things that religion has to offer. I would like to be one of the positive things that religion has on offer. I think religion has a lot of great things, and I think atheist chaplains are a necessary part of that tapestry. 

“Someone who is going to say, "It just sucks that your mom died. She isn't in a better place. It just sucks. She's just gone. You're just not gonna talk to her again." And sit with someone in that. I think I have a role and a call on this planet to be that person.”

If Vanessa Zoltan does not demonstrate the need to reserve governmental censorship for when the greater good makes it unavoidably necessary, I don’t know who does. After all, libertines like Vanessa Zoltan eschew personal responsibility and teach the wise why self censorship should in fact be valued by Constitution-upholding Americans. Besides, Constitution-perverting leftists utilize censorship to oppress others under the God-defying hedonism that Vanessa Zoltan espouses. Conservatives ought to therefore focus primarily on wisdom-born self control (which includes self censorship), and the fools will hyperfocus themselves into exemplifying the folly of Constitutional abuse (which includes using the Constitution to create pseudorights on the other hand and eschew personal responsibility on the other hand).

Originally on Reddit: Casual Sex and Spiritual Damage, With a Hypothetical Example

(“How do studies measure ‘spiritual damage’?”

(A hypothetical case study might give one an idea as to “how”.)

 In most religions and denominations/movement/sects thereof, casual sex is at least discouraged and at most condemned. Even in, e.g., Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, premarital cohabitation is discussed as not ideal in a CCAR resolution. The impact that casual sex can have on one’s individual relationship with his or her professed deity (e.g., God), his or her individual and communal relationships within his or her congregation (e.g., at his or her local Reform temple or Liberal/Progressive synagogue), and his or her religious standing—both within and outside of his or her local congregation (e.g., within his or her local Reform temple and across the URJ)—can be impacted.

For example (hypothetical names, etc.), if supposedly-God-fearing Reform rabbi Pesah Minkowicz is known to be polyamorous and living with his equally-polyamorous fiancée, congregants at Qehjla Qadosz Reformi in Krakow are going to question whether they can trust him to lead the congregation and help them if they should ever deal with unfaithful spouses. If Rabbi Minkowicz understands how the congregation has a difficult time viewing him as a God-fearing and trustworthy rabbi, he might begin to understand how both his relationships with his congregation (not to mention the entire Reform community in Krakow and perhaps even across Poland) and his relationship with God might be damaged.

Rabbi Minkowicz might consider, “If my congregants view me as, quite candidly, a man-whore and a hypocrite, then the God that my ancestors may not view me in a favorable way, either. My congregants must also be wondering how I can be esteemed as a man whom helps one lead the self to God. I therefore imagine that God must view me as a rabbi whom is not shomer Torah [observant of Torah], no matter how much of it He gave at Sinai.”

Rabbi Minkowicz, based on reports that he receives on a frequent basis from trustworthy congregants, may conclude that God will eventually allow that Poland’s URJ equivalent revoke his semikha (rabbinical ordination) and permit QQR to put him under kherem (censure or excommunication) for (among other desecrations of God’s Name) playing the male harlot. If he were simply a congregant and perhaps only a layman’s capacity at most, the consequences of his actions might be less severe. Nonetheless, especially because he is a rabbi, his Torah- and God-defying behavior may well incur for him spiritual damage that might cause him to either:

1. ⁠do teszuwah (repent) and even be part of a monogamous couple with a fiancée-turned-rebicin (rabbi’s wife)

2. ⁠resign his rabbinical position and congregational membership, and even dissociate himself from Reform Judaism altogether.

(PS: Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism tends to be less secular in Eastern Europe, Canada, etc. than, e.g., the United States and the United Kingdom. Also, “w” in Polish is pronounced “v”; “c” as “ts” and “cz” as “ch” or “tsh”; “sz” as “sh”, and “j” as “i” or “y”. That’s why when Rabbi Minkowicz receives a letter that warns of “cherem” unless he does “teshuvah”, he needs to consult an English-speaking colleague as to what exactly a URJ representative in Warszawa meant.)