Even people with yichus who seem born for spiritual greatness and look holy may actually be something very different on the inside.

The Hebrew term translated as “hypocrite” is tzavua—painted.

Like Esav, hypocrites “paint” themselves as special people who risk their lives and well-being to fulfill important mitzvot, like bringing fresh game to their father and asking pious-sounding questions like “Do I need to tithe the salt?”

But look at what else they’re doing.

(And I don't mean the mistakes or misjudgements we all make at times. You don't accidentally and repeatedly kill people, engage in occult worship, or violate young women as Esav did.)

As the Kli Yakar points out Toldot I, Esav didn’t need to hunt down his father’s meat—they had huge flocks of meat right there! (Sheep, goats, and cows…)

His father, Yitzchak Avinu, sent Esav out to capture wild game for the reasons explained in Toldot I, but those weren't the lessons Esav chose to learn.

I've noticed that dysfunctional people often do engage in deeds that demand hard work and dedication - and even courage.

The question is: For whom are they being so mosser nefesh...for God? Or their own ego?

And what ELSE are they doing when they think no one will catch on?

May we always merit the influence of the tzanuim and not the tzavuim.

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While Nazism is usually touted as an atheist ideology, it was actually atheist in the way that polytheism is atheist.
 
While it is true that by 1942, 25% of Hitler Youth schoolboys professed to not believe in God, that doesn’t mean they held no theological or (impure) spiritual beliefs.

​In fact, a powerful pull of Nazism was the idea that the Aryans were a race of gods, so to speak.
 
The German occultists, who grew in number and popularity starting even before World War I, believed that their ancient Nordic runes symbolized the Divine and showed the “original relationship” between “the god-sons and the world spirit, and they could lead a true seeker back to his cosmic homeland and offer a mystical union with God.”
​
(I cringe as I copy down this quote, but this is what was really going on back then.)
 
One of the most popular forms of occultism then was Ariosophy, a racist form of occultism that started up even before Word War I. 

A huge part of the reason why Nazism rejected Christianity has nothing to do with the reason why Judaism rejects Christianity.

Ariosophists saw Christianity as superimposing itself on the original Nordic pagan beliefs (which it certainly was, if you look at European Christianity with an objective eye.)

Some Ariosophists borrowed pagan elements from Christianity to bolster their system.

Himmler, for example, yearned to establish an SS Vatican and many Nazi occultists resented the authority of the Catholic Church, which they saw as a usurper over their “pure” and original belief system.

Just like the New Age movement does today.

It sees Judaism and Christianity as “paternalistic religions” that usurped the original and supposedly “purer” harmonious-with-Nature wise-woman pagan belief systems, systems that New Agers romanticize with blather about “Gaia” and goddesses, while ignoring the extreme cruelty and misogyny inherent in those very systems.
​
(Yes, you can be a misogynist even while worshiping a goddess. Just ask the slobbering male fans of Marilyn Monroe.)
 
While many people do realize now that Nazism based itself on occult elements, many people do not realize that they borrowed a tremendous amount from Eastern religion, specifically yoga practices.

An Indian group of Hindu’s highest caste embraced Nazism (to the point that their female leader—a Hindu convert of British-Greek ancestry—declared that Hitler was the reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu).

This group also saw parallels with eugenics in India’s inhumane caste system — while of course defending animal rights, nature conservation, and calling for the death penalty for those who didn’t respect animals or nature.
 
(I know it sounds weird, right? I mean, most Indians are a lot darker than Ariosophisy allows. On the other hand, one of the rules of conduct according to Wikipedia for the highest Hindu caste is "conduct himself as an Aryan." See how kochot hatumah mess with one’s head?)

Certainly, most yoga practitioners today do not support and even despise Nazi ideology.
 
They would be horrified to hear what early Nazi enthusiasts did with yoga.
 
Yet there was Hindu-based Nazi support in India (headed by that crazy British-Greek cat-loving hag) and Ariosophists certainly found themselves in Eastern paganism.

In other words, there was a mutual attraction.

So what did the Nazis see in Eastern mysticism that compelled them to borrow from it?

First of all, let’s deal with the beloved argument of how the Eastern Hindu/Buddhist swastika is different than the Nazi swastika because it’s spinning in a different direction and that the Nazi swastika is a broken cross — and nothing to do with the oh-so peaceful and innocent Hindu/Buddhist swastika!
 
Not true.

Both swastikas come from Hinduism/Buddhism.

This is how the swastika became the Nazi symbol:

In May 1919, an Ariosophist named Krohn wrote the following memorandum:
Is the swastika suitable as the symbol of the National Socialist [Nazi] Party?

(He meant the Hindu/Buddhist swastika, as we'll see in a moment.)
 
Then he proposed the left-facing swastika (aka the "good, peaceful" swastika) “on account of its Buddhistical interpretation as a talisman of fortune and health.”
​
(The right-facing swastika indeed denotes death and decline in Buddhist thought—not Nazi thought. Again, the Nazis did not invent the right-facing "bad" swastika; it already existed within Eastern spirituality.)

But Hitler wanted the right-facing Buddhist swastika for its symbolism of death...and Krohn acquiesced.

This Buddhism-loving Krohn also designed the color scheme of the Nazi symbol, with the black swastika on a white circle on a red background. He maintained the colors held spiritual significance.

So the initial proposal of a Nazi swastika is based on its Hindu/Buddhist symbolism and it was chosen according to Buddhist interpretation.
 
Again: The Nazis didn't invent their swastika; the Eastern religions already had it!

BOTH swastikas appear in Eastern symbolism.

As far as the Nazis were concerned, it was simply a matter of which one.

And in fact, on a 1908 chart of Ariosophic runes and symbols, both swastikas appear.

The cold hard literal facts?

There is no such thing as a Nazi swastika.

The Nazi swastika IS Hindu/Buddhist.

So next time someone tries to defend the left-facing swastika as being the Hindu one (and therefore, acceptable & "good"), you'll know that NO; BOTH swastikas are Hindu.

Or Buddhist. Or whatever.

Peace 'n' love, man.

As early as the 1890s, the original occult theology (which influenced Nazism) envisioned “a superhuman individual” who would “end all human factions and confusion with the establishment of an eternal order.”
 
Applying the idea of karma, this philosophy described how all Austrians and Germans who died in battle would be reincarnated as people with “innate millernian fervor” to form an elite corps of revolution.
 
And while the occult ideology that influenced Nazism certainly stood rooted in Norse mythology and nature-worship (as seen in their secret rituals involving a grove, spears, horned helmets, and accompanied by a small choir of “forest elves”), I was surprised at how often Eastern philosophies and symbols appeared:

• Disillusioned by post-WWI Germany, a young racist ended up leaving Germany for Australia, where he later developed the idea of building an Aryan homeland in Queensland (although he felt California was a good option, too). Then he started wandering around the world. In Peru, he met the Devaswara Lama, from whom he received “esoteric instruction.” After that, he met a yogi who apparently conjured some visions of scenes from the young German’s former incarnations. Returning to Germany, he worked as a yoga teacher and a draftsman, and even wrote a book called Hatha, Rāja, Karma, Bhakti and Jñâna Yoga. (I'm not making this up.) He later published his writings in the evil Nazi propaganda rag: Der Sturmer.

 

• In 1924, a German named Marby started up a newspaper based on his obsessive study of astrology and rune traditions. After developing a system to use runes in meditation and health-enhancement, he channeled these ideas into a series of books in 1931. Marby created postures and movements based on these runes to improve one’s reception of “cosmic influences.” He then progressed into “rune-gymnastics” which also involved repeating the rune sound as a mantra—all clearly drawing on yoga, according to scholar Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. (There was also rune-yodeling, but this topic has gotten weird enough already.)

 

• In the late 1920s, the Ariosophical Society held lecture-tours and courses on “karmic astrology” and...yoga.

During that time, the German occult movement was thriving and developing special studies and books in the following: astrology, yoga, palmistry, meditation, and more.

​Initially, the occult movement developed all this as a way to promote “health and personal happiness.”

​(Sound familiar?)
 

• In May 1932, the Ariosophical School opened, offering courses in, among other things, “yoga and breathing exercises.”

​Again, just because the Nazis and occult racists used a certain system does not mean that system is evil and racist.

• There are kosher forms of meditation.
• There is kosher palm reading (i.e. to gain insights into one’s personality and potential, not for fortune-telling).
• Frum vegetarians simply don't like meat or poultry, as opposed to avoiding meat for "spiritual" reasons or because they value animals equally to humans.

So why bring this up?

The early German occultists were attracted to yoga BECAUSE of its inherent spiritual nature and power.

​The occult contains real power (although not a greater power than the holiness Jews access through Torah and mitzvot) and these Ariosophists were expert occultists who consulted directly with Eastern practitioners.
 
Let’s look at it this way:

Before World War II, you had books, classes, courses, and even a school teaching how to improve health and mental well-being by connecting with “cosmic energy” via specific positions, breathing exercises, hand formations, mantras, and even yodeling — all based on ancient Nordic runes.
 
And apparently, participants indeed felt better, else these things would not have gained such popularity.

If you came across one of these system today, would you engage in these rune-based practices as long as all the racist Ariosophic and pagan elements were removed?

Would you contort your body into, say, a Nordic rune as long as the instructor assures you that calling it "pinwheel" makes it okay? After all, it's just stretching!
 
(And again, BOTH kinds of swastikas — the one adopted by the Nazis & the peace one — were included in the runes.)

Sorry to repeat, but please remember that the German occultists did not invent all this.

They merely borrowed and made adaptations from pre-existing Eastern systems.

​They simply modified yoga positions and breathing exercises and mantras to match their runes.

If the spiritual power wasn’t there, all these occultists would not have spent decades researching and adapting the Eastern system.
 
To sum up, Eastern spiritual systems seem innocent, but their power and impurity is very real.

This can be seen via their societies.
​The societies based on Eastern spirituality are rife with horrific human rights abuses and terrible poverty. They can blab on all they want about being one with the cosmos, veganism or vegetarianism, nature, vibes, achieving nirvana, but the result is a corrupt and abusive society.

The New Age movement in America has been growing for decades now.

I’m sure you spotted the similarities between what you see among the New Age in American society and what the Ariosophists also promoted: healthy eating, yoga, breathing exercises, astrology, meditation, animal rights, nature conservation, etc.—all with the goal of personal health and happiness.
 
As explained in Part 8: Clean Green Nazis, Torah Judaism also covers the way to live a spiritually and physically healthy life.
 
But this New Age stuff isn’t it.

Ultimately, all this nature-loving, Eastern-spiritual, get-back-to-pagan-roots occultism led to what Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke describes (in the Nazi view, not his own):

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Over the past week in Eretz Yisrael, powerful winds have been gusting all day and all night, with no respite.

Our haters have taken advantage of this to set fires that rage out of control in the dry and blustery weather.

Our Sages tell us to look into Torah wisdom for guidance.

Perek Shira contains the song of the wind (Yeshayahu 43:6):

This verse appears amid a sea of comforting verses in Chapter 43.

The commentators all interpret it to mean an active gathering of the Jews exiled outside of Eretz Yisrael. One explains that "teiman" is a particularly strong wind from the South, necessary to "blow" the exiles into their Homeland.

Another explains that some exiles are actively restrained from leaving their country of exile, while for others, the topography (mountains, etc.) stand as an obstacle. These reasons are why the verse also declares: "Do not restrain!" - Let them go free!

Radak says that it mentions daughters and sons separately to indicate that the ingathering of women and children will be "conducted slowly" - i.e. gently, in consideration of their greater difficulty when traveling?

Anyway, the wind is a comforting sign, a reassurance of Hashem's Promise to gather everyone Home.

Yet could it also be a call to action? A call to come Home?

But the winds are blustering in Eretz Yisrael.

So what's the message to we who are already here?

Another way to "come Home" is to do teshuvah.

And it seems to me that the powerful winds combined with the out-of-control fires are a call to do just that.

P.S. A segulah to protect against one's house from fire is to read Birkat Hamazon from a bentscher/birkon (as opposed to reciting it by heart).
Presumably, you can also read it with the intention of protecting all of your brothers' and sisters' houses from burning.
(I can't remember the source for this - sorry!)

When my friend (we’ll call her “Leah”) was 8, her mother suffered a debilitating injury and all the young children in the family needed to be parceled out to relatives.
 
(Her father was overwhelmed with making a parnasa and caring for his injured wife.)
 
Luckily, my friend and her younger sister ended up at the tiny 2-bedroom apartment of Rav Finkel, one of the Gedolei Hador and the Rosh Yeshiva of Mir, where she and her sister remained for the next two years.
 
It was Erev Shabbat and the home was bustling and crowded with family and Shabbat preparations. The Finkel girls got the bath ready and placed Leah and her sister in the tub. With her life upended, all the bustling and crowding, and the water warmer than she was used to, Leah freaked out and shrieked, “It’s too hot! It’s too hot!”
 
Immediately, arms plunged into the water to check and there was a rush to add cold water. (It actually wasn’t too hot, but they wanted to accommodate her.) Voices around her called out to reassure her that it really wasn’t too hot & that she had nothing to fear.
 
But overwhelmed by everything up until that point, Leah cried out, “They’re burning me! They’re burning me!”

She was immediately whisked out of the bath until they got the temperature down. (Her sister was fine, by the way.)
 
Later that evening, they all went to set up the meal at the yeshiva. Leah was asked if she could run to the yeshiva kitchen to bring a necessary item.
 
Leah complied, but to get to the kitchen, she needed to go past Rav Finkel and the other talmidei chachamim congregating around a table in the hall. Feeling very shy about being seen by these great men, she ducked her head and broke into a scampering run in the hopes that she could carry out her mission without any of the great sages noticing her.
 
But one noticed her anyway.

Rav Finkel grabbed hold of a fold of her loose skirt with two of his fingers as she flew by.

Blushing and cringing, she froze.

“So, Leah'leh!” he said, playfully. “They're burning you! They're burning you! Eh?”
 
A smile crossed Leah’s face, but other than that, she couldn’t move or speak.
 
Then Rav Finkel grew serious and said firmly, “NO. No one is ever going to ‘burn’ you here. I won’t let them! You have nothing to be afraid of here.”

And then he let her go.
 
As Leah recalled this memory 40 years later, the sheer joy of it flowed up her body, expanding her face into a smile, the pleasure beaming from her face.

Her arms were elbow-deep in a sink full of dishes and baby bottles, but she looked like she was in ecstasy from the recollection.

Later, I pondered why that memory brought her so much joy, even 40 years later.
 

• Despite the fact that Rav Finkel was occupied with other rabbanim and Torah matters, and despite the fact that Leah was trying very hard not to be seen, Rav Finkel noticed her anyway -- which meant she was important enough to be amid everything. 

 

• Despite the important and honorable rabbis he was with and despite the fact that they were engaged in a Torah conversation, Rav Finkel felt that she was important enough for him to interrupt all that to give her some positive attention & reassurance.

 

• Rav Finkel knew her name and even used the affectionate form of her name.

 

• In order for Rav Finkel to have known the Burning Hot Bath story, either he asked his wife and daughters how Leah was doing and was interested enough to listen to the story AND retain it OR his wife and daughters felt the need to tell him (in much the way a mother relates her children’s antics to their father) and he was interested enough to listen to the story AND retain it. He listened and remembered despite everything he had to do with his own family, running a yeshiva, preparing for Shabbat, and his dedication to his Torah studies.

 

• He understood how to reassure her. First, he made her laugh. Then he spoke seriously, understanding how she must be feeling in the situation and reassured her. (And she is this way as an adult, too: Make her laugh, and then get serious.)

 

• Obviously, Leah didn't need Rav Finkel's protection; the rebbetzin and the children were all very good people who would never hurt her in any way. (Ultimately, her memories of the Finkel home were very positive.) Yet he declared "I won't let them!" just to make Leah understand that she was under his personal protection.

All in all, Rav Finkel showed this powerless little girl that he considered her important and that she was cared for and safe.

Truly great people make even the smallest people feel great too.

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In NAZI GREENS - An Inconvenient History, Martin Durkin writes:
 
“The Nazis conducted horrific experiments on children (I have seen footage so upsetting it can’t be shown on TV) but at the same time they banned medical experiments on animals.”

​I myself always loved animals.
 
Aghast at hearing about hunters clubbing baby harp seals, my parents bought me a realistic-looking baby harp seal doll that I loved with its plush silver-white fur and winsome dark eyes, whose funds were donated to an organization that saved baby harp seals.
 
I also yearned to be a veterinarian and often played veterinarian on my stuffed animals.
 
Yet despite my great love for animals as a child, it always bothered me that animal rights activists invested so much in saving whales and the like when human suffering was so common and so obvious.
 
And while they always defend their priorities by saying that species extinction affects people and acting as if without their efforts, there won’t be a world for people to live in, the truth is that the disappearance of, say, the dodo bird did no damage to the human race.
 
Of course if all the bees really did die out, that would have terrible global ramifications on our food supply. Some species are vital for human life.

But as beautiful as, say, white tigers are, saving them is far less important than saving a human being. Protecting white tigers are even less important than improving an impoverished person's quality of life.
 
Judaism holds that the life of a child with Downs syndrome and missing arms and legs is STILL more important than that of a healthy stallion or an endangered species.
 
But the Nazis held a completely distorted view.
 
Today, many people value animals more than people. PETA is a particularly repellent example of this, expressing sorrow over terrorist use of a donkey to kill Jews, but not over the Jews meant to be killed. (Baruch Hashem, the explosives detonated before the donkey reached its target.) Or comparing crated chickens to death camp inmates.
 
I'll just leave you with two quotes from the Nazi era regarding the treatment of animals and you can compare this attitude toward that of animal rights activists (and even some pet owners) today.
 
[Quotes courtesy of World Future Fund: Animal Protection] 

"The German people have always shown their great love of animals and the question of animal protection was always near their hearts.  For thousands of years the German people have always looked upon their household and farmyard animals as their companions, in the case of horses as their fighting companions, and as God's creatures.  To the German, animals are not merely creatures in the organic sense, but creatures who lead their own lives and who are endowed with perceptive facilities, who feel pain and experience joy and prove to be faithful and attached...Under the influence of foreign conceptions of justice and a strange comprehension of law, through the unhappy fact that the exercise of justice was in the hands of people alien to the nation (i.e., Jews) -- because of all these conditions, until now, the animal was considered a dead thing under the law."
 
-- Hermann Goering [may his name be erased], August 1933
Source: Hermann Goering, The Political Testament of Hermann Goering. Tr. H.W. Blood Hermann (London: John Lang, 1939), pp. 70f.

​The Nazi Law of Animal Protection was signed into being on November 24, 1933.
 
Here is a sample:

“It is forbidden to use an animal unnecessarily for what clearly exceeds its powers or causes it appreciable pain…to use a fragile, ill, overworked or old animal for which further life is a torment…to set or test the power of dogs on cats, foxes, and other animals…to perform a painful operation on an animal in an unprofessional manner or without anesthesia…”

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In NAZI GREENS - An Inconvenient History, Martin Durkin writes:

While the Nazi movement is generally portrayed as atheist, it was really pagan.

​An entire movement based on nature-worship and borrowing from Far Eastern influences (like yoga and Buddhism) preceded the Nazi movement and strongly influenced Nazi ideology, as will be discussed in a future post.
 
The Nazis prized pristine nature, just as they prized what they viewed as a “pristine” race.
​
Vegetarianism was "in" and smoking was "out."

Again, Darwinism plays a part here.

​With evolution seen as “survival of the fittest,” an evolutionist sees the today's trees, plants, and flowers as examples of the fittest flora.
 
So preserving and nurturing beautiful flowers, for example, means getting rid of useless and troublesome weeds.
 
Applying this concept to people, undesirable races or racial characteristics are mere weeds in need of uprooting to protect and nurture the superior Juliet roses.

This was the view of Ernest Haeckel, a German zoologist who coined the term “ecology” in the 1870s.

He gained infamy as the creator of the inaccurate yet famous woodcuttings meant to show the human fetal stages developing through the forms of primary groups of adult animals — quasi-mirroring the stages of evolution, an alleged indication of evolution.
 
These woodcuttings, though inaccurate, and the theory behind them were still being taught in school in the Eighties as one of many “proofs” of evolution.

​In college (early 1990s), I remember students and professors discussing them in class as if they represented accurate fetal development.
 
So the Nazis cherished nature conservation for the same reasons as Haeckel's ecology.

Ever since elementary school, I felt disturbed by how environmentalists invested so much in saving trees when so much dire human suffering plagues the world.

Environmentalists always defend their priorities with claims of human suffering caused by forestry loss and pollution, and acting as if without their efforts, humanity won’t have a world to live in, that if you save and nurture people, they won’t become so desperate to  harm their environment.

But their claims to be acting on behalf of humanity never rang true to my heart.

(Not to mention there is so much nature throughout the world, humans aren’t in any real danger from ecologically incompatible practices.)
 
And while we all want clean water and clean air and healthy nature, the Nazis idealized this in a way that proved both religious and genocidal.

I’ll leave you with some quotes by some of history’s most immoral and sociopathic figures.

I’m sure you’ll find the ideas expressed in them unnervingly familiar:

"The man who contemplates the universe with his eyes wide open is the man with the greatest amount of natural piety; not in the religious sense, but in the sense of an intimate harmony with things." 
 
Atheists often express some form of this idea.
 
But guess who also felt this way?
 
Adolf Hitler [may his name be erased]. Those are his own words.
 
Source: Adolf Hitler [yemach shemo], Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941-1945 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953), p. 5.

​"Man should organize his existence meaningfully in the natural sphere of his living space, should make everything that nature offers him useful for himself while being conscious of his responsibility, should be the master of nature but at the same time its protector and conserver."
— Julius Wagner, German educator
Source: Julius Wagner, Die Biologie im Dienste heimatlicher Landschaftskunde (1934).

​GERMAN IMPERIAL CONSERVATION LAW OF 1935
Lands protected included:
"Remaining portions of landscape in free nature whose preservation on account of rarity, beauty, distinctiveness or on account of scientific, ethnic, forest, or hunting significance lies in the general interest."
Source: Raymond H. Dominick III, The Environmental Movement in Germany: Prophets and Pioneers, 1871-1971 (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 108.  (Introduction to law can be read here (PDF File).

​"At the end of the last century the progress of science and technique led liberalism astray into proclaiming man's mastery of nature, and announcing he would soon have dominion over space ... In any case, we shall learn to become familiar with the laws by which life is governed, and acquaintance with the laws of nature will guide us on the path of progress."
— Adolf Hitler [yemach shemo], 11 July 1941
["Path of progress"! See? He was a progressive.]
Source: Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944.  tr. N. Cameron & R.H. Stevens (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), pp. 5-6.

​"Among the Spartans, all newly born children were subject to a careful examination or selection. All those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race."
— Ernst Haeckel, Father of German Ecology
Source: Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation. 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1876), vol. I, p. 170.

​"The German landscape is something unique that we cannot disturb and have no right to destroy. The more densely populated our 'living space' becomes with settlements, the greater our hunger will grow for unspoilt nature. The ever increasing spiritual damage caused by life within the big city will make this hunger practically uncontrollable ... when we build here on this the landscape of our homeland we must be clear that we will protect its beauty; and in places where this beauty has already disappeared, we will reconstruct it."
— Fritz Todt, who believed that, based on the above, “our engineering will reflect the National Socialist [Nazi] movement."
Source: Franz W. Seidler, Fritz Todt: Baumeister des Dritten Reiches (München: F.A. Herbig, 1986), p. 113.

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At the end of Who is Really Trumped in the End, I mentioned that I also felt a sense of elation at President Trump's victory. And it wasn't just relief at having narrowly avoided Hillary.
 
And yes, I am also thoroughly enjoying Obama's petulance over Trump's win.
 
And I also think, "Ha! You deserve this!" regarding the Leftists who are devastated and frightened by a Trump presidency after having been allowed and encouraged to bully and dominate for so long.

(Now they're tantruming and it is UGLY.)
 
But my elated reaction and the even more elated right-wing Conservative reaction are not unique in history.
 
Rabbi Tauber, who survived the Shoah with his father, and made their way to Eretz Yisrael, were not part of the politically Left and anti-religious "Zionist" movement. They were just happy to be able to fulfill the Jewish dream of settling in Eretz Yisrael.
 
Yet Rabbi Tauber wrote that despite knowing better, it was hard not to get caught up in the elated atmosphere of political Zionism (as opposed the beautiful mitzvah of yishuv Eretz Yisrael) on the boat that was taking the two Tauber survivors along with a large contingent of political Zionists to Eretz Yisrael.
 
Hashem clearly sends a certain "ruach" into the world at times. It's easy to get caught up in it. Many people understandably do. But a firm grounding in Torah can endow you with stability and perspective, even in those times.

Likewise, prior to their respective revolutions, the ruling classes in France, Russia, China, and Germany were brutal and corrupt.
 
The ruling classes DESERVED to be cast down.
 
They enslaved, abused, and exploited their citizens in horrible ways.

They (meaning, those of the ruling class who behaved despicably) deserved what they got.
 
(Just like all the freaked-out American Leftists deserve this upheaval -- although in this case, it is those same Leftists who are responding violently, and not the triumphant right-wing.)
 
And the euphoria of the original Communists and Nazis was followed by a certain amount of positive change.
 
And then things went horrifically bad.
 
Now, we know that the heart of a nation's leader is in Hashem's Hand.
 
King Charles V was a striking example of this:
Paradoxically, he kept the Inquisition going against the Jews in Spain while protecting the Jews under his rule in Eastern Europe.
(Rav Yoselman of Rosheim influenced a significant part of this protection as described in the engrossing book Rabbi Yoselman of Rosheim.)
 
Chazal also says that Hashem doesn't pick good people to be the shaliach for bad events.
____________________________________
So, yes, the euphoria on our side is very real.
 
And the reasons for the euphoria are also understandable; I feel it all, too.
 
And maybe this IS all the beginning of an upswing. I hope it is!
 
But 19th-20th-Century history tells us that many times, the downfall of a corrupt and brutal leadership accompanied by euphoria often led to something worse after a temporary improvement.
 
(America's yoke-tossing of British rule was different because their goals were different AND God was firmly in the picture. Despite being technically Christians, many Colonial Americans came close to being Bnei Noach and even instituted laws and a Constitution based on JEWISH law and hashkafah. And okay, yes, they misunderstood and misapplied a lot of it due to their ignorance, but their efforts were sincere.)

Just as one example, Matzav's summary of the most recent President Trump interview doesn't bode well.
(HT: Yaakov Yeranen)
 
Non-Jewish societies MUST NOT allow contractual "marriages" between two men -- for THEIR own good. When they start allowing this, it is always the beginning of the end. So the fact that Trump will not amend this is a problem. (In addition to the fact that he gave the opposite impression during his campaign.)
 
Also, the Clintons are NOT "good people." I mean, come on. You can say the Clintons ran a tough campaign (which they did) without praising them personally (which they don't deserve).
 
The point is, we don't know at this point whether this is a good upheaval or a not-so-good upheaval.
 
Personally, I see it all as a sign to double-down on doing teshuvah, scrubbing out bad middot, and intensifying the relationship with Hashem (through prayer, talking, confessing, thanking, etc.).
 
It could end up being good. It depends.

May Mashiach come in peace and set the world right and bring all Jews to Eretz Yisrael b'komemiut.

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Nazi education from elementary school through high school and all throughout college consisted of brainwashing, pseudoscience, and the indoctrination of undeserved self-esteem.
 
Male students found themselves honored with a dagger engraved with the self-esteem-raising phrase: “Be more than you seem.”

And by 1942, only 1 in 4 Hitler schoolboys believed in God.
 
School became a place to teach Nazi morality and the pseudoscience of eugenics, to teach Aryan children that they were little gods intended to rule the world, and to create a superior fighting force.

​When I was in school, evolution was taught as a fact.
 
And there were also the infamous you-know-what-ed classes (boys and girls together).
 
In 7th grade(!), such a class was taught by one of the Phys. Ed teachers, who was inclined toward her own gender only and rumored to be having an affair with a like-minded teacher. We thought it was funny.
After all, what did such a woman have to teach us about this subject? Ha-ha!
But now I think teaching this in school is sick.

It's the norm in such classes, for example, for the teacher to pass around different forms of birth control to get the students familiar with, snicker at, and silently puzzle about. (How exactly would I ever use this? Where do I put this exactly?—it looks really uncomfortable.)
The pretty colored concentric circles in the Pill package were attractive, yet confusing with their different colors. The instructions were also confusing. And why does the Pill-popper need to take the differently colored placebos again?
(Remember: 7th grade girls either have not yet started getting their cycles or are still fairly new at it, and are still learning the ropes, so to speak.)
 
As one homework assignment, the students were given a list of phone numbers provided by an information organization. If you’d call one of those numbers, you would get a recording explaining to you all about that particular topic. The topics covered diseases transmitted you-know-how, abortion, same-gender attraction, and other topics I’m embarrassed to mention here. Students looked at the list and wondering what those diseases were and you pronounce their names. But they did the assignment even though the cheerful pre-recorded sound-bite was boring and beyond their comprehension.
 
All this was supposed to prevent disease and unwanted pregnancy, and make young people feel “okay!” about any dissolute or deviant behavior while enhancing their ability to make “informed decisions.”

It never seemed to work, however, because both junior and high school students consistently make irresponsible decisions in this area and the teen pregnancy rate is only rising.

​In 8th grade, our Social Studies/Geography teacher was showing us a film and then paused the camera. "The following scene shows an abortion," he announced. "But I am not allowed to show it because YOUR PARENTS objected. I feel that you are mature enough to deal with the subject matter, but SOME PARENTS disagree." Then he continued with the rest of the film (after the abortion part).
 
I was relieved, personally. I had no desire to see the murder of an unborn baby (even if I didn't think of it in those terms back then).
 
But the clear message was that our rights were being violated somehow.
Yes, violated!
By our PARENTS!
Woe are us!
And also that this was censorship and condescension.
 
It was confusing because on one hand, I was relieved not to have to watch it, but on the other hand, I got the sense I was supposed to be outraged and offended -- as if my initial feeling of relief was not the correct one.
​
(I know...you’re probably wondering what that film had to do with geography. I don’t know.)

But my friends who attended exclusive private schools had it even worse. Super Liberal, those top teachers decided that part of the high school Language Arts curriculum MUST include a movie so disturbing and traumatic that every woman I know who saw it STILL has the occasional nightmare about it 2 or 3 decades later. Baruch Hashem, I never saw it for some reason, even though it was an extremely popular cult classic.
​
I could go on and on, but you’re probably nauseated enough by now.

​Interestingly, both my junior high and my high school populations comprised a huge percentage of Christians and Mormons. And while they gave some pushback, it was very weak considering their number.

Sometimes, Christian students did speak up in the classroom, but their comments were always short, pathetically simple, and unpersuasive. (Usually something along the lines of: “But my pastor says…!” or “But the Bible says…!”)

And they could never respond to a teacher's counterclaim in any way.

I remember one teacher, in response to a student's protest of learning evolution, explained that he was obligated to teach it and students who didn't believe in evolution could just take it as a theory, sort of like learning different schools of philosophy.
 
At second glance, it's strange how that was dealt with.

I mean, science deals with fact, right? It should be able to stand up to the basic questions of a preteen at least.

It's weird that schools were required to teach a "science" and then tell students to treat it as an alternative fictitious theory. This never happened with biology or physics or algebra.

But this way, the students couldn't really ask questions or present counter-arguments and the teachers never needed to defend their "evidence."
 
Looking back, it's bizarre how passive and uninformed about their own positions the Christian students were. They had their churches, communities, families, and youth groups, but they could not launch an effective counterattack against the onslaught. I guess it's not surprising seeing as Christianity's foundation insists on a ignore-the-obvious mindset that doesn't exactly sharpen the mind. 

When learning about carbon-dating in 7th grade, I asked the teacher how we knew that it was the same then as now.
 
She smiled and said, "Well, we can't know. But we assume."
 
"Why do we assume that?" I asked. "What if it changed?"

I was confused. After all, we were talking about tens of millions of years ago, with a different climate in the kind of world that sported many active volcanoes, T-Rexes, Brontosauruses, and Pterodactyls.
 
"We just do," she said cheerfully. "But good question!"
 
Much later, I realized that the phrase "We assume" is one of the most popular in science.

​It's somewhat disturbing that a field that prides itself on "proven theories" and "experiments" and "fact" and "evidence" uses the phrase "We assume" with such regularity.

There’s really no reason why most BAs need four years of college.
 
Two or three years is sufficient in most situations.
(For example, Israeli universities take only 3 years to get a BA.)
 
College today is largely political and social brainwashing with very little actual education going on, just like it was in Nazi Germany.
 
Yet I think that, say, Harvard Law School will actually still give you an excellent education in Law, but I’m not sure that is true with all its subjects and it is certainly not true for many colleges, especially anything in the category of Liberal Arts.
 
At one college I attended, I remember getting lots of books to read and many interesting class discussions that resembled late-night dorm mate discussions about life rather than academic discussions. Regarding one book, our professors told us that if it was too hard, we didn’t need to read it; we could just listen to the discussions of it among the students who did read the book.
Wow! Thanks, Professor Easy-Does-It!
 
Furthermore, because a BA is becoming so common, many people feel the need to go for a Masters in order to stand out.

Just looking around at my family and old friends, did they (their parents, actually) really need to spend 4 years of college and tens of thousands of dollars for a degree in hotel management? Or jewelry-making? Or business? Or to become a pharmacist?
 
One of my relatives dropped out of community college after flunking computer programming (out of lack of motivation), but because he is a computer genius, he later joined a cell phone company and is making a darn nice salary in their hush-hush innovations department.

Sure, some careers demand a dedication of time. Law and medicine come to mind.

But most careers just don’t need that.

Furthermore, there is an enormous amount of brainwashing and Leftist force-feeding. One of the most noticeable examples is how pro-Israel students feel intimidated or even fearful on campus nowadays. And the anti-Israel demonstrations are truly stomach-turning to watch.
 
Similarly in Nazi Germany, elite schools were created and lionized. Students selected for these schools were told what a privilege attendance was and the scholastic level was greatly exaggerated. Enrolled students felt like (and were told) that they’d “made it” just by being accepted.
 
Likewise, when Modern Orthodox activist for right-wing Conservatism Ben Shapiro entered Harvard Law school for the first time, he recalls Elena Kagan getting up and announcing that the “competition” was over. Just by virtue of having been accepted to Harvard, he and his classmates would be “the future leaders, making policy.”
 
He recalls her giving them the feeling that “we were smarter, more qualified, and morally wiser than the rest of the country.”
Later, Shapiro marveled, “And we hadn’t even done anything yet!”

But they had the elite guarantee.
(See Kagan was My Dean at Harvard.)
 
Yet Nazi Germany’s top schools were actually inferior to parallel schools in other European countries (which I don’t think is completely true yet in the USA), much to the shock of young German students upon meeting fellow students from those European institutions. The Nazi students couldn’t believe that they didn’t know more than their non-Nazi counterparts.

​And like many American places of higher education, the Nazi schools of higher education padded their curriculum with bogus subjects like “Folklore” and “Schooling in Worldview” and “Religion Lore.”
 
American college students are made to feel superior by getting a college education, which was actually inferior, just like Nazi-German college students were made to feel superior despite their inferior education. “I’m going for my bachelor’s” is said as a statement of pride and achievement, even if the achievement isn’t worth much or padded with extraneous subjects and vastly overpriced.

A friend of mine who worked as an assistant professor at an Ivy League school recalls two assistant professors who used to design their curriculum to torment their students. (She didn’t specify how, but you can imagine things like assigning a convoluted project that would require foregoing several nights of sleep to hit the unrealistic deadline, and so on.) She said she frequently heard them say things like, “Yeah, let’s do this! This will REALLY make them suffer!”
 
I was convinced they must have been joking.

But she said no, they weren't.

​At first, she thought they were just joking, too, but then she heard their talk with such frequency and also heard about their students’ reactions and complaints. She found it unnerving, but I don’t believe she ever did anything about it. 

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Nazi Germany promoted only one ideology and used both mockery and documentary to promote this through books, songs, newspapers, radio, plays, and movies. Both frightening and mocking images were widely used.
 
Likewise, in America, the alternative to the Liberal view was unavailable until the Internet came along. But even now, you must actively search for the Conservative viewpoint—and most Liberals don’t.

Growing up, I remember that anything not solidly Liberal was presented as either scary or absurd. Comedians routinely (and convincingly) mocked Republican candidates and Conservative views. Movies always portrayed Conservative values as evil and harmful, sneaking this attitude in everywhere. For example, I watched a movie about a hard-working family struggling out of poverty, their saga pulling at my young heartstrings. As the parents sat in their empty business one night, bemoaning their losses and investment in the face of their failing business, the wife asked her husband how such a tragedy had happened.
 
“Reganomics,” the husband growled.

The only thing I remember about Independent Ross Perot running for President in 1992 are political cartoons in which he was drawn with comically large ears and a derisive caption about his policies.
 
Democrats and Liberal viewpoints and policies were NEVER presented or inserted negatively in this way.

Talk shows made a farce of fairness by bringing on odd, unappealing Conservatives against well-spoken, appealing Liberals. (On one of the most popular talk show, the Conservative adults showed up dressed like children wearing their Sunday school clothes and holding index cards with talking points to which they referred throughout the program. Opposite them were Madonna’s main dancers.) On top of that, the host or hostess manipulated the discussion to make the Conservatives seem even more unappealing, crazy, and uncompassionate. These taped shows were also edited to make the Conservatives look even wackier and the Liberals even more appealing. I did not know any of this then and it all just “proved” to me that the Conservative side was not only wrong, but silly and pathetic.
 
I could blame my blindness to this obvious manipulation on having been young, but the fact is that Americans of all ages continue to allow themselves to be brainwashed in this manner.

Science is also utilized as a weapon.
 
Despite the innate bigotry against Jews in Europe, Nazi Germany still needed incontrovertible scientific proof to convince the cultured, educated German people to go along with Hitler’s program.

So they took eugenics, an age-old idea (Plato discussed it) that basically meant mating people considered particularly intelligent and healthy with the same while discouraging the opposite.

Francis Galton took the idea of species evolution from his cousin, Charles Darwin, and applied it solely to human development, coining the term and field of “eugenics” in 1883.

 
While Galton initially spurred the study of eugenics as focusing on hereditary human traits, others took this idea and expanded it to include a social philosophy.
 
Nazi Germany then took this and created a pseudoscience out of it, complete with studies and diagrams, and strongly emphasized the social philosophy:

1. People are NOT born equal.
2. Genetic fitness determines one’s innate value & moral fiber.

​There are many examples of pseudoscience today.

Let’s look briefly at the science of “teen brain”:
 
The increasingly immature and dysfunctional behavior of adolescents that is extending further and further beyond one’s teens is often blamed on “teen brain.”
 
Experts use charts and diagrams to show how teens aren’t really capable of better behavior or decision-making. However, the truth is that brain development is influenced by thought patterns and behavior. You can strengthen or change various parts of the brain merely by changing specific thoughts or actions.
 
Yet what they like to call “teen brain” is often the result of immature and dysfunctional behavior, often combined with poor nutrition, and not the cause of poor choices and bad habits (although this becomes a reinforcing cycle).
 
The result of this faulty science foisted on society is the indulgence of young adults, low expectations, psychiatric medication, family angst, and a dysfunctional society.

(For a fascinating look at this, please see Dr. Epstein's article Let’s Abolish High School or his incredible book, The Case against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen.)

Furthermore, accepting all sorts of behavior as a normal, unavoidable stage relieves parents and society from implementing any changes to improve the situation. If it is a necessary stage (like teething), then it is pointless to even try doing anything about it.
 
Talk about learned helplessness.
 
Parents characteristically roll their eyes and moan, “Teeeeenaaaagerrrr…” when discussing their children’s irresponsible or distressing behavior, feeling helpless and feeling that it is pointless to do anything more.
 
This is despite the fact that examples abound in recent memory of teenage success in adult endeavors: marriage, child-rearing, scholarship, work, entrepreneurship, and much more.
 
Psychiatric medication is commonly recommended to teens based on this type of teen-brain "science."

And if you refuse to accept the socially accepted “science,” whether it’s global warming, evolution, fetal development, or a host of other twisted or outright bogus science—regardless of how many facts exist to back your refusal—you will be mocked.
 
And everything, whether it’s TV, books, newspapers (especially via cartoons), movies, etc., is used to make fun of and deride anyone who refuses to kowtow to the decided “science.”

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First of all, congratulations to America on the Trump win!
 
I never thought we’d be saying “President Trump,” but here we go.
 
(NOTE: This post is about to get super negative, but ends on a positive note.)
 
As I’ve stated on this blog, as horrible as Hillary Clinton is, I didn’t feel that Trump was decent enough to vote for. So I didn’t. But I respect those who voted for Trump as the lesser of the two evils and whose good hearts compelled them to stop a sociopathic Hillary Clinton leadership.
 
And of course, I enjoyed Trump’s mouthing off to reporters, interviewers, and sycophantic candidates as much as anyone else.
 
But along the lines of this blog's current series of America’s Scary New Direction, I want to point out some things:
Nazi and Communist leaders all did positive things for their countries in addition to the atrocities.

And these positives can never outweigh the horrific things that happened.

But the people (at least initially) felt those positives did outweigh the horrors.

Stalin

• Industrialized the USSR, bringing its economy up and modernizing its military
• Defeated Nazi Germany
• Transformed the USSR into a global power
• Vastly improved Russian education, providing the USSR with top scientists and others,
• Eliminated illiteracy

Mao

• Enacted equality for women
• Vastly improved the military
• Instituted one common language: Mandarin (as we learn from Migdal Bavel, people need a common language in order to be unified)
• Deposed the corrupt warlords and the imperialist rich exploiting the common person
• Transformed the Chinese economy into an economy of growth and vitality

Hitler

• Improved worker safety
• Provided hot meals for workers along obligatory work vacations.
• Enabled the average German to finally be able to afford cheap holidays at large resorts
• Enabled the average German to buy a car
• Built the Autobahn
• Built railroads
• Hosted the Olympics
• Provided seemingly wonderful children’s programs
• Slashed unemployment for the average German
• Vastly improved Germany’s military

Please notice that the positive changes under each ruler occurred toward the beginning of their leadership, which lulled people into thinking things had really changed for the better.
 
Furthermore, the above accomplishments are extremely desirable.

How can you argue with the benefits of better transportation, low unemployment, a thriving economy, the elimination illiteracy, equal opportunity regardless of class or gender, rescuing people from banditry and exploitation, and more?
 
President Trump has also promised to “rebuild” the American military, take care of “the people” and so on.

(Note: I don't think Trump is like Mao, Stalin, or Hitler. But I think American society is headed in that direction because many Americans are self-absorbed, lack a moral value system, prefer social media & entertainment to doing the right thing, and many have become mindless)

Maybe I am wrong, but I think things will look up at the beginning:

• I believe Trump will build a wall (or at least make a good go of it).
• I believe that he’ll deport some illegal immigrants (whether in roundups or of those already in prison or in some other way).
• And you might see an upswing in the American economy and employment (especially with the accelerated military “rebuilding”).
• Hopefully, he’ll minimize regulations for small businesses and rescind America's horrible overreach into expat bank accounts (or at least, reduce the fee to cancel American citizenship so those of us who want it aren't forced to pay 1000s of dollars that we don’t have).

 
But America (with the exception of the many people who "held their nose" as they voted because they rightly can't stand either candidate — or those who didn't vote at all for the same reason) has shown that it doesn’t care about even the most basic morality of its leaders.

Please see American Jews and the Presidential Election for a succinct yet thorough list of both candidates' flaws.
 
Right now, America just wants its ego (to be “great!”) and its comforts.
 
And it's important to note that Trump won by a very narrow margin. There is a sizable percentage of Americans who support Hillary, despite her heinous history.

And as long as people under Communism and Nazism felt materially taken care of, they turned a blind eye to the nasty stuff—until it was too late.
 
I hope I am wrong. I hope that Mashiach will just show up already and get us all, both spiritually and physically, to the place we're each supposed to be.

​Yet despite everything I've been writing about Trump, I'm feeling strangely elated about his victorious election results. A friend of mine, who doesn't like Trump, said she also feels excited about the Trump victory.
 
Hopefully, this is a sign that things won't go down the terrible road history seems to indicate. 

I don't know what Hashem's Plan is, but I do know that He is Compassionate and gives us numerous chances to finally get it right.

Hopefully, Mashiach will come before there is any more suffering.