Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Zionist Satmers


I think the Neturei Karta and other Satmar Chasidim are being more than a little misleading about their own ideologies to the secular media solely in order to deride the Zionist ideology in the eyes of the Nations. They urge people to differentiate between "Jews" and "Zionists", explaining that only Zionists believe in Occupying Palestinian land and killing innocent civilians, while they portray themselves, representatives of real Judaism, as political doves.

I feel they are being openly misleading since the Satmar must believe in Mashiach. Because if they didn't, they would be outside the pale of Orthodox Jewry by all standards. They believe in a Mashiach who will be accepted to Satmar standards, but if there one day is a may who conforms to all their Messianic requirements, they will be compelled to follow him. And in every version of the Jewish story, whether you're Satmer or Abayudaya, Mashiach leads the Jews back to Israel. Here's the tricky part; there are already Palestinians in Israel. But they too will of course accept the authority of a Satmer Mashiach, because he is, after all, not Zionist. ...won't he? Well, we have a tradition about the Messianic Era that states "עולם כמנהגו נוהג", nothing will happen on a supernatural level. Besides for the return of the Jewish state under Mashiach, things will be the same. In that case: no. The Palestinians will not leave their houses because a Satmer Mashiach tells them to or because a Lubavitch Mashiach tells them to! In that case, there can be no way around some level of bloodshed. Even the Satmer agree to that. Just because their Mashiach hasn't come YET, doesn't mean they don't believe that he will or that they gave up on their Messianic dream to occupy Palestine.

I think it's silly to imagine a Judaism exclusive of Eretz Yisrael, and what living there entails. I'll give you an example; I think it's stupid how the כיבוש הארץ is always attributed to Yehoshua and Yehoshua alone. It says clearly in the summer parashyot which no one ever bothers to read that Moshe Rabenu was also involved in many of the initial campaigns East of the Jordan. That's right, the man who received the Torah twice with his very hands has the same person to draw his sword and fill it with the blood of the armies of the Bashan and the Emori, to make way for Jewish Settlers. And let us not forget the author of the beautiful Tehillim which fills our mouths every day of the week; David Hamelech, another great pillar of normative Judaism, waged wars with neighboring nations only for the sake of acquiring land! Even according to Satmer, Judaism and "Zionism" cannot exist without each other (for them they do now, but they have not and will not always be apart).

The Christians are also very misrepresentative of themselves; they say that, notwithstanding events like the Crusades and Inquisition, "essential" Christianity is peaceful whereas essential Islam is warlike. That's pure rubbish my friends; there is an oft-quoted verse, among many others of it's kind, from the mouth of the Prince of Peace himself: "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword". The only possible PC explanation that could be given for such a statement is that in the Gaelic Bible, the word for sword is actually exchanged for the word for peace. Yes, but the Bible was not written in Gaelic...

All three of us, Jews Christians and Muslims, have to stop being squeamish about what our scriptures actually say.....

2 comments:

Feivel ben Mishael said...

Whether or not things will happen in a natural way is a machlokes. The Rebbe speaks about it alot in sichos and although I don't remember clearly because I did not get to those sichos inside, I believe the Lubavitcher Rebbe resolves the varying opinions by suggesting that if we merit it, the Geulah will come in a moment in a supernatural way, but if ch"v not then it will be drawn out and tumultuous.

הצעיר שלמה בן רפאל לבית שריקי ס"ט said...

I believe you're somewhat misinformed dude; the late Lubavitcher Rebbe is not the originator of that idea, but rather the Talmud is (San. 98): "זכו אחישנה לא זכו בעתה". But I'm sure he has expounded upon that statement many times...