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Looking for Clarity according to Biblical Sources
Why have we, the Jewish Nation been Silent? President Bush is convinced that the Roadmap is the way to go and mainstream American Jewish Organizations have yet to publicly deny that it's the Jewish way.
Where is clarity of the Jewish position regarding our entitlement to our Jewish homeland based on the boundaries delineated in the Torah? Where is clarity regarding our position of a 2 State Solution and the Roadmap proposed by the Bush Administration and Olmert Administration. Where is clarity and a Jewish statement that correlates observance of Mitzvoth depending on the Land with security in the Land. Where is clarity related to the status of non Jews? Are agreements and treaties that are against the Torah binding or alternatively null and void?
And the answer is....
All major Jewish Organizations including Agudath Yisroel, OU, Young Israel and Lubavitch Headquarters have basically been silent letting everyone second guess what their position is.
Read the Pesukim again and again. Here is an attempt to make a clear statement according to Biblical Sources. All comments are welcome.
Mission Statement
The entire world belongs to G-d. (1) He created the world and apportioned His land to whomever He deemed worthy of residing therein. (2)
We are a people of faith. It is written in the Torah, that the land of Israel, was promised by G-d to our forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchok and Yaakov, to be passed down to His chosen nation Israel, as an everlasting inheritance. (3) The boundaries of the Land of Israel are delineated in the Torah. (4) (5). Any agreement to revoke the Covenant with our forefathers is considered null and void.
Our Nation was chosen by G-d to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and to infuse the world with holiness by observing the holy commandments in the Torah. (6) This and only this will bring peace and prosperity to mankind. (7)
No other nation, peaceful or hostile has that mission or mandate. Any claim to the Land of Israel by an alien entity is purely one of a stolen identity.
An Arab State living side by side in the holy land is a contradiction in terms and is in defiance to the desire of the Creator of the world (2). Our obligation to perform the commandments sanctifying the land, impels us to say "How can we keep the commandments like Shemittah without the land of Israel?" Annulling the Covenant (9) by false treaties which gives away our land is a recipe for disaster (10) So is walking with happenstance with G-d. There are daily ongoing miracles that have occurred in Gush Katif, and now in Sederot. We won a miraculous victory in 1967 and the Jewish nation has miraculously survived and outlived Nazi Germany.
The roadmap promoted by President Bush, Condeleeza Rice, and the government of Israel (GOI) has empowered evil and terror to reign in the world. In addition, G-d has sent His witnesses and His emissaries, the heavens and the earth (8) to wreak havoc in His world in the form of natural disasters - tzunami's, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes.
We call upon all people of faith to use their G-d given talents, resources and abilities to work to proclaim these truths. We defy the evil forces that use their resources be it oil or other, to instill a fear society rather than a free society. (11)
Collectively, let us call for a reversal of the Camp David accords, Oslo, the convergence plan, unilateral withdrawals and the roadmap which advocates the two state solution. Let us choose life, that which is good. (14)
It is time to cut our losses, recognize that we are going in the wrong direction and start anew, going in the right direction - with a Torah roadmap. This will issue in a new era filled with peace and blessings for humanity. ( 7) (14)
For the commandments which G-d has commanded is not hidden and it is not in heaven....it is not over the ocean...Rather the matter is very near to us...in our mouth and in our hearts to perform it. (14)
We are commanded to wage a holy war - a Milchemet Mitzvah to defend our entitlement to the land. (12) In our days the Milchemet Mitzvah is also in PR and the media. Each and every Jew, man, woman and child is a soldier and the weapon is the mouth and the pen via conversations, mail,email, fax, telephone, blogs, websites, print media,radio and TV and organizational dinners and functions.
In Biblical times those that accepted Jewish sovereignty and the 7 Noachide laws were welcome to remain under the Status of Ger Toshav.(13) We would be endangering our security if we allowed those that wished to annihilate us to stay within shooting range.
The nation of Israel is the violinist. The land of Israel is the violin. The Torah is the music. When the Nation of Israel, live a holy life in the holy land we become the conductors for the entire world.
It is our position that the nations of the world adhering to the 7 Noachide laws, join, support and participate in this magnificent and mighty orchestra rather than destroy the instruments, the players and the music.
And rather than war and terror, let the music begin....
Also the Lubavitch Rebbe zt"l quotes the first Rashi
In the beginning, G-d created the Heavens and the Earth
What is the reason the Torah begins with Creation? Because if the nations of the world say to Israel: "You are robbers because you have conquered with force the lands of the nations of Canaan" Israel can answer: "He created it and gave it to whomever was proper in His eyes. Of His own will He gave it to them and of His own will He took it from them and gave it to us."
-- Rashi on Genesis 1:1
(3) Bereishis/Genesis 13:15-18 ; 17:8 (HaShem to Avram - promise of land; to Avraham - new name and reiteration of promise of land)
The Covenant with Abraham is Breishis/Genesis 15:18-21. (extended boundaries, from the River of Egypt to the Eurphrates River, covers boundaries of 10 nations)
The Covenant to Isaac Breishis/Genesis 26:2-6.
The Covenant of Jacob is in Breishis/Genesis 28:13-16.
The Covenants and promises to the forefathers share three points. 1. Land is promised to them and to their children afterwards 2. The Nations of the world are blessed through them and 3. the children must keep the commandments in order to be worthy of the Land.
Shemos/Exodus 6:4,8 (HaShem to Moshe - reminder of promise to the Avot)
Isaiah 11:12; 49:12; 51:11 (Ingathering of exiles; return to Zion)
Amos 9:14,15 (Return from captivity - plant on to the land - never again to be uprooted)
Ezekiel 36:24, 36; 37:21( Gathering from all the lands to your own soil)
(4) Breishis/Genesis 15:18-21. (extended boundaries, from the River of Egypt to the Eurphrates River, covers boundaries of 10 nations)
(5) Bamidbar/Numbers 33:53; 34:13 (HaShem to Moshe - boundaries of Eretz Yisrael, the 7 nations)
(6) Shemos/Exodus 19: 5-6 (The Nation of Israel will be a Kingdom of Priests and a holy nation)
(7) Hashem's blessings to Am Yisroel
Vayikra 26: 1-14
Devarim 28: 1-14
(8) Devarim 31:28 G-d calls heavens and earth as witnesses
Devarim Perek 32 Parashas Haazinu. Hashem calls upon Heaven and Earth to be the witnesses.
(9) Leviticus 26:42-46 Hashem will send the Nation of Israel to Galus for rejecting the Covenant with our forefathers and despising the Mishpatim and Chukim (ordinances and decrees) but Hashem will not reject them completely to obliterate them because He will remember the first Covenant when He took us out of Egypt before the eyes of the nations of the world to be G-d unto them.
(10) Leviticus 26:14-41 Tochacha
Devarim 28: 15-69 Tochacha
Devarim Perek 31 Pasukim 17-23 (Hashem's anger in hiding his face since the Jews annulled the Covenant made with our forefathers and did not keep the Torah a natural outcome.)
(11) When we are unwilling to draw clear moral lines between free societies and fear societies, when we are unwilling to call the former good and the latter evil, we will not be able to advance the cause of peace because peace cannot be disconnected from freedom. (Sharansky)
Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected. (Sharansky)
(12) Rambam Laws of Kings 5:1,2
Which is a Milchemet Mitzva? This is a war to save Israel from an enemy that has attacked them.
(13) In biblical times a Gentile who observed the seven Noachide laws in the Holy Land was regarded as a resident alien or Ger Toshav in Hebrew. (גֵר תּוֹשָׁב)
(14) Devarim 30 Returning to G-d
Devarim 30: 11-15
