ISRAEL

"Extremists Smash Ancient Synagogue & Smash Jewish Values"

http://oholiav.com/2012/05/ancient-israeli-synagogues-defiled-by-jewish-attackers/

    Monday night, as the holiday of Shavuot (5772 / 2012) came to a happy close and we communally re-accepted Torah and its goal of living as a distinct community, an ancient synagogue in Israel, an archeological treasure was desectrated, not by If only the chief rabbi and other sane Orthodox leaders would use the "bully pulpit" to speak to these nut cases in a language/mode/logic that they can hear and respond to! This rabbi declaims, "Let them not desecrate My Holy name, which they sanctify for me" [Leviticus 22:2]. 

     As a people, we value Kiddush Ha-Shem (the sanctification of the Divine Name) and are instructed to avoid Hillul Ha-Shem "defamation of the Divine Name." These concepts are core Jewish concepts: the glorification of God and the diminution of His honor. (Although rabbinic terms, they are sourced in Torah, specifically, Leviticus, the third Book of the Torah's Five Books). These concepts are included among the 613 commandments and the entire people are subject to them. Each of those who desecrates and defiles wears, I'm sure, a tallit (prayer shawl) with tzitzit (i.e., fringes) on the four corners tied with a total of 613 knots in order to accept the mitzvot (i.e., commandments) and remember and do them. 
  
     Deplorably, these destroyers are wearing pneumonic article of clothing to remind them NOT to do the very thing which they are commanded to remember to avoid doing. Cognitive dissonance. 

     Please, oh hierarchy of Israeli rabbinate, sanction strongly these people and give them a way back to Kiddush Ha-Shem, a return to the way of Sanctification of the Name of God in order to glorify God and the Jewish People. 

     Let us not continue to be shamed and suffer the religious tantrums and frenzied fits of the misguided. Let us not refuse to exercise our discipline and protect our Shem Tov (i.e., reputation; good name) and our Yichus (i.e., our inheritance and archeological treasures bequeathed us by our ancestors and studied with reverence and expertise by our contemporary scholars to be admired by us and all peoples as an source of inspiration and understanding, indeed, as Light unto the Nations.