80 Rabbis

To all the Illustrious Rabbis and Jewish Leaders who signed the letter named a “Call for Moral  Clarity”:

I beg to differ with your conclusions.

With all due respect for your knowledge, wisdom, and leadership qualities …. I humbly beg to differ with your conclusions.

I think that there have been many, many times during the course of Jewish history where the clear simple truth was distorted and we tended to forget that it only takes one pure light to dispel the darkness. And this is one of these times.

The ENTIRE world seems to have bought in to the propaganda that Hamas is spreading. Antisemitism is becoming a pandemic, infecting so many, so violently and so vehemently throughout the entire world. Lies propagate lies and falsehoods build upon false foundations.

The entire world is shouting for the destruction of the Jewish people. “From the River to the Sea” means no place for you and no place for me, for if, God Forbid (!) Israel falls, world Jewry has barely a prayer or a synagogue unharmed to pray in.

I stand behind my beliefs that the IDF is the MOST humane, MOST just and MOST moral army in the world.

This is WAR and the key to ending this war, immediately, remains in the hands of Hamas, just as it has always been. If they were to bring the 50 (now 48) remaining hostages to one of the passes between Aza and the rest of Israel and lay down their weapons at the same pass, the war would end within a few hours.

But they have continued for almost two years to refuse to any agreements, demanding ridiculous conditions that would prove suicidal for us. They value their own lives so little that the rate of exchange for hostage vs terrorist starts at 1:30, reaching occasionally as high as 1:1000 (in the case of Gilad Shalit). They played torturous mind game with the families of the hostages, promising release at a certain time and dragging it out for so many hours that must have felt like years to these poor mothers, wives, children….

They paraded innocent Israeli civilians in a mockery of a “goodbye party” handing them gift bags, photographs and certificates! In order to just show the world how far they would go in torturing people who had already suffered so greatly.

Finally, only now, testimonies from former hostages bring to light the depth of deprivation, lack of human dignity and horrible conditions to which the Hamas subjected innocent hostages. They were subjected to unending physical abuse, psychological abuse (including eating elaborate meals in front of hostages who were given 1/2 a piece of pita to eat in 24 hours), psychological abuse (promising that they were about to be released among other lies) sexual abuse, and true documented STARVATION.

There are no innocent civilians in Aza; a math teacher and a lawyer held Ilana Gritzewsky hostage, doctors held Noa Argamani and Omer Shem Tov hostage; an elementary school teacher held Noga Weiss hostage, a nurse held Ada Sagi hostage and a journalist held Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov hostage. Not one of the captors refused to cooperate, not one of them sent a clandestine message to the family that their child was alive.  None of the hostages reported being treated with a drop of human kindness, a bit more food or a cold drink of water.

We are at WAR.  This WAR is for our survival.  My three sons and two sons in law all together have served well over 1000 days in reserve duty.  That means over 1000 days of not sleeping in their own bed, 1000 days away from their wives, away from their children and away from their jobs, 1000 days defending and protecting our beloved country, in the North, in Aza and in Yehuda and Shomron.

There have been many periods during our long galut that we felt the despair of  G-d hiding His face from us; or sensed a situation of G-d once again hardening  a Pharoah’s heart, periods  that clouded our vision and caused us to mistake wrong for right, or to doubt the justice of our path or to lose track of our purpose in this world . But throughout the ages there was always a small still voice that cried out the truth, holding out a banner of hope and a carrying a burning beacon of light.
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“He who is merciful to the cruel will in the end be cruel to the merciful”.  We have gone out of our way, bending over backwards to provide food, medicine, medical treatments and aid to the residents of Aza.  Look at the people of Nir Oz!  Oded Lifshitz participated in an organization called “road for recovery” and drove those in need of lifesaving medical treatments to Israeli hospitals on a weekly basis. Those good deeds did no good for him when he was taken hostage and murdered!

Our strength is in our UNITY.  HaShem is sending all of these tests to us to show us that our superpower is in our unity alone.  When we are unified we don’t need the Amalek, the Haman, the Hamas…. but when we have infighting over who bears the burden of military service, of who travels to Uman for Rosh HaShana and who travels to Khan Yunis…. then HaShem comes to teach us that same lesson once again.

We are not in the Galut any longer!  We are the Generation of the Geula and must accept all the responsibilities that this will require of us.  I do not profess to know what this means exactly or how it will come about, but I do know that the world is changing, turning itself inside out, calling the enemy the hero, calling evil “good” and morality “cruelty”.

Accepting ANY responsibility for the suffering in Aza means acquiescing to ALL the responsibility.  The world already blames us, we have been tried and sentenced in their eyes.  NOW is the time for Jewish unity, not for letters such as yours.

I have only the deepest respect for your wisdom and learning.  I am very afraid that like the 10 pillars of our community back in the days of Yehoshua you are missing the bigger picture; that this Land Is VERY VERY GOOD, and this LAND IS OURS!.