Oy!

Let it be stated for the record that this Orthodox Hassidic newspaper through this action was itself in violation of many severe sins.

First, they have violated the sin of “baal tosif”, there is a prohibition in Torah against adding more prohibitions.  This is based upon Deuteronomy 4:2, which states, “Do not add what I have commanded to you.”  Nowhere in the Torah does it state that it is prohibited to look at a picture of a woman who is modestly dressed.  In cutting out Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason, they are thus guilty of this sin.

They have also violated the sins of “midvar sheker tirchak”, not distancing themselves from falsehoods (Exodus 23:7).  One is guilty for this sin by presenting a story that is inaccurate. Similarly they have violated the Talmudic sin (Babylonian Talmud, Hullin 94a)of “geneivat data” (stealing the mind), tricking someone into believing an inaccurate idea.

By tampering with this photo in violation of White House guidelines, they have violated the Talmudic sin that one must obey the laws of the land, (“dina demalchuta dina”, the law of the land is the law).

They have also violated the positive commandment of “hakarat hatov”, showing gratitude.  This commandment is described in the classic and great medieval work, Sefer HaChinuch as follows:  ”recognize and bestow kindness upon one who has done him good and that he not be base, a dissimulator, and one who denies the good done him by another.”  Since Ms. Clinton and Ms. Tomason worked on this effort for many years, it is disgraceful that they were cut out of this photo.

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When hearing about the downfall of an enemy, the rabbis remind us of the verse from Proverbs:  “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles.”

This is in line with the tradition that no matter how wicked our enemies are their destruction is not a cause for celebration.  The Talmud tells us that “God does not rejoice with the fall of the wicked.”  As the rabbinic teaching goes, as the Children of Israel were crossing the sea and the army of Pharaoh was drowning, God rebuked the angels for showing excessive joy.  And to this day, our liturgy reflects that by limiting the psalms of joy that we recite to commemorate that event.

The reason for this muted celebration is twofold.

First there is recognition that even when our enemy falls, this does not signal an end to all our troubles.  Just because one enemy or one army or one threat has been removed does not mean we are entirely safe.

Second, we must acknowledge that the destruction of the enemy did not necessarily arise from our own merits.  We are perhaps not worthy of the good fortune that we have received and so we do not want to tempt God, as it were, or remind the Angel of Death of our own defects.

So our tradition is clear: Public rejoicing about the death of an enemy is entirely inappropriate.

However, our tradition is also clear that it is appropriate to express deep gratitude when hearing about the death of Osama Bin Laden.

We should express gratitude to the Navy Seals who bravely killed him.  We should express gratitude to all those who were involved in removing this horrible being from our world.  And we should express gratitude to our Maker for removing a danger from our lives.

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According to Orthodox Jewish law, women are permitted to carry a Torah scroll. (For example, in 1972 Rabbi Shlomo Riskin received support from both the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik when he allowed women in his congregation, Lincoln Square Synagogue, to dance with the Torah scroll on Simchat Torah.)  Thus, Anat Hoffman was not in violation of Jewish law.

The fact that she was arrested for this “crime” of holding a Torah at the Western Wall would not be tolerated if it was in Communist Russia or repressive Iran, and it should similarly not be tolerated when it happens in the Jewish state.

I know the Israeli police who guard the Western Wall to be moral, righteous, brave and holy individuals. For this reason, I especially encourage them never to do something like this again.

The 17-year-old boy was wearing Tefillin–or a set of religious leather accessories that are strapped to the forehead and arm–as part of his morning prayer ritual.  (See images below.)

The passage in the Bible that commands us to wear Tefillin (Deuteronomy, 6) also commands us to wear them “u-ve-lechtekhah baderekh, when you are going on your journeys.”

So this student’s devotion was on the one hand admirable.

However, the reaction of the staff was very much understandable.

For the uninitiated, Tefillin can look a little weird.

As someone who has many times worn tefillin on an airplane, I often wonder what people think I am doing.

But lets look on the bright side.  Thanks to this passenger and flight attendant, many more people now know what Tefillin are and maybe more Jewish people will wear their Tefillin every day (except when flying on US Air).

First, religious teachings support the woman who was arrested.  Jewish law expressly permits women to wear a tallit.  The great Maimonides explicitly states: Women are permitted to wear tzitzit (Laws of Tzitzit 3:9).  Second, the location of the arrest adds to the damage from this incident.  The prophets describe the Temple Mount as a place where the voice of God will go out to all the nations of the world.  In arresting a woman while she attempts to pray in accordance with the laws of Maimonides, the authorities are committing a desecration of God’s name and polluting the holiness of the Temple Mount.

The arrest and the policies the police were enforcing also in effect deny the woman her right to expressly follow the teachings of the Torah and practice her faith.  Furthermore, by doing so at the Temple Mount — which is supposed to be a source of the light of Judaism to the nations of the world — the damage is compounded and the state has unfortunately opened itself up to ridicule and contempt.

Sadly, the authorities have ceded the Temple Mount and its holiness to a group of fundamentalist and exclusionary Jews who increasingly do not share that prophetic and open vision.  By acting in such a rash manner and enforcing this policy, the authorities have further ceded the moral high ground of the entire country by practicing religious discrimination. But there is still hope. Instead of allowing this arrest to set a precedent, hopefully the authorities will use this opportunity to do everything in their power to reverse the ban and issue a formal state apology to those holy women who desire to wear a tallit at the Western Wall.

For the past few years we have been hearing of anti-Semitic attacks — verbal and physical — against the Jewish community of Venezuela and we felt the need to visit the community and express our solidarity with them.

There are three words that summarize what we saw in the Jewish community.

The first word is fear.

There is tremendous fear right now in Venezuela.  In the general community there is fear, but that fear is greatly compounded in the Jewish community.

When I innocently asked someone if they were afraid, they said, “of course, we are all afraid.”   Everyone we met withÑevery single person–expressed fear about the situation.

Here are some examples of how the fear has manifested itself:

During Israel’s recent war in Gaza, the Jewish schools remained open, but their school buses stopped running.  The community felt it was too dangerous and too much of a target for children to go to school that way.  The rhetoric of the government against Israel was too dangerous and incendiary.

Wherever we went, we felt that the Jewish community was literally under siege.  Every Jewish institution is in a compound. When entering a Jewish organization, one must first go through enormous security — a double door/wall entrance — similar to the ones in prisons — and a serpentine path to protect against terrorist attacks.  Every Jewish facility is surrounded by very solid and high protective walls.

We were told by many members of the community that it was no longer safe to walk on the street.  It was considered far too dangerous.

Leader after leader told us that Chavez not only created the climate for the attacks with his incendiary remarks but that he was also more directly responsible.  For example, on the night of January 30 there was a terrible attack upon the Tifereth Israel Synagogue.  It was a commando style operation involving 19 people and used sophisticated weapons to penetrate advanced security.  When we met with the Cardinal of Venezuela he told us that government bandits were responsible for the attacks on the Jewish community.

The Jews of Venezuela are now living in a country that has state sponsored anti-Semitism and on top of that it is a country that has allied itself with Iran and Hezbollah.  When you combine state sponsored terrorism and Hezbollah it makes for a potentially deadly combination.

It is no wonder then that when we met with the leaders of the major school in Venezuela we were told that their enrollment had dropped in half since Hugo Chavez had come to power. Almost the entire reason for this drop was because Jews had left the country in fear.

As the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi community in Venezuela, Rabbi Pynchas Brenner, explained to us, “We are living with the fear of fear and it is scary.”

But with all that fear that we witnessed, the second word that comes to mind is courage.

We saw great courage.

When we met with the Cardinal of Venezuela, Jorge Urosa, (who is also the Archbishop of Caracas) he began the conversation by putting his cell phone in a different room so that the government would not be able to listen in.  The cardinal is a very courageous man who has taken principled positions against the government even though he knows he is endangering his life.  Around a year ago, the Papal Nuncio to Venezuela was outspoken against Chavez.  Then one night a hand grenade was thrown over the wall of his residence.  No one was hurt, but the message was clear.

Cardinal Urosa told us that Chavez personally attacks him on television in a very public and vile way, but despite these veiled personal threats against him, the Cardinal still speaks out publicly in support of the Jewish community.   After the attack upon Tifereth Israel he immediately called leaders of the Jewish community is solidarity.  He then issued a very great statement saying that an attack upon any synagogue is an attack upon every religion.

We saw courage amongst the people of the general Jewish community.  We saw it in the Beit Shmuel synagogue where a hand grenade was thrown over the wall of the compound on February 26.  Again, no one was hurt but the message was clear.  The rabbi of the synagogue told us that he heard the explosion from his home four blocks away.  He said that his kids woke up crying.  Yet, in an amazing moment, when we walked into the synagogue that day on Shushan Purim, we saw a room full of people studying Torah. The hand grenade did not scare away the students of Torah.  We davened together with these holy and brave Jews and then we sang and danced to the words of Am Yisrael Chai.  Our dancing and singing carried out into the open plaza outside the synagogue.  We danced around in circles over the very spot where the hand grenade had exploded.

And we saw tremendous courage in the leadership of the Jewish community of Venezuela.

The heart of the Venezuelan Jewish community is a complex known as Hebraica.  Hebraica has a school that serves the needs of over 1500 children a day.  In addition to its school it has enormous and beautiful facilitiesÑsoccer and baseball fields, tennis courts, bowling alleys, swimming pools, restaurants, and even a discotheque. On any given day there are thousands of Jews congregating there and using the facilities.

Since 2004, Hebraica has been raided twice by Chavez’ police.  The first raid happened as the children were coming to school in the morning.  The raid was ostensibly to search for terrorist weapons.  But the leadership of the school told me that the police were actually only looking for places where they could plant the weapons.  It is not a coincidence that the raid happened on November 29, the day Chavez visited Iran which is also International Palestinian Day. Chavez is using the Jews as pawns in his attempt to curry favors with others.  The Jews are an easy target for him.  And it is just the beginning.  After the school was raided a second time, on December 1, 2007, this time the day before a national referendum, the policeman told the head of Hebraica: “The next time we will find what we are looking for.”

Hebraica is the nicest Jewish complex I have seen anywhere in my entire life.  And yet, I had the terrible feeling that Chavez wanted to confiscate the whole property for his own political purposes.

During the recent war in Gaza, the leadership of the Jewish community met with Chavez and he told them to renounce Zionism and to criticize Israel.  The Chavez regime has been enormously critical of Israel and has depicted them as a barbaric Nazi like state.  For example, on the day we arrived we saw a state published newspaper showing a picture of a concentration camp with an Israeli flag flying over it and the caption: “New Administration.” The message of Chavez was that Israel is the new Nazi Germany.

When Chavez asked the leadership of the Jewish community to break with Israel, they responded: “We are a Zionist community and we will support Israel.” That is courage!  To be able to say that to a dictator who is in total control of the country is extraordinary.  At Hebraica we noticed that right next to the Venezuelan flag, the Israeli flag was flown proudly outside of the school in many places clearly visible to all.  In the face of ruthless bullying this community is courageously standing up to the bully.

And one last word about courage.  Some people have said to me, “Why don’t the Jews just leave?”

Many have left; perhaps half since Chavez came to power.  Many others want to leave, but are concerned about the economic reality of starting over at this difficult time.  But I also got a different sense when I met with leadership of the community.  Venezuela just might be the most beautiful Jewish community I have ever seen.  They are united, spirited, and they have built a beautiful infrastructure.  To leave is to give victory to a bully.  The courageous ones who have stayed are not naïve.  They know how serious the situation is.  But they also know that they do not want to give up on everything they have worked to build for the last 200 years.  They do not want to run from a bully; they want to stand up to the bully.

And this brings us to the third word: responsibility.  All of us outside of Venezuela now have a tremendous responsibility.

Over and over again we heard a simple but clear message: “We are very limited by what we can say, but we need you to return to your county and speak out strongly on our behalf.”

We have an enormous responsibility.  The Jews of Venezuela were absolutely fine ten years ago. They were living in a beautiful country with tremendous security.  Now an anti-Semite is intimidating them and we must assume responsibility.  We must be the conscience of the world and speak out loudly on their behalf while demanding that others do so as well.  We must literally be one with our brethren.

I will never forget one scene in particular.  It was Shushan Purim and as we danced and sang to the words Am Yisrael Chai in the Beth Shmuel synagogue, the singing was suddenly stopped by an incredible rabbi who has been living in Venezuela for many years.  He went to the middle of the circle and said, “There is a modern day Haman. His name also begins with an H.  But we know that we will overcome him as well.  In just one month we will read from the Haggadah where we recite the following words: ‘Bekhol dor vador omdim aleinu lechaloteinu ve-hakadosh barukh hu matzileinu miyadam, in every generation they stand against to destroy us, but Hashem saves us from their evil hands.’”

Yes we pray that Hashem may save us.  But we need to do our part as well.  We need to assume responsibility for our brethren, the Jewish community of Venezuela.