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The Aspect of Israeli Mentality You Need to Know in Order to Understand the Issues

17/6/2019

14 Comments

 
Before I continue writing about my son’s experiences in the IDF, I wanted to publicize an issue that I think many Anglos aren’t aware of it because, again, I never saw it covered in any media and socially, Anglos who join the IDF tend to go into combat and other essential units.

Whether you encounter this particular mentality within Israeli society depends on what circles you’re in and whether you yourself possess a mentality that allows you to recognize the dynamic when you see it.
 
So this is what it is:
 
Many (probably even most) Israelis are brought up with the idea that IDF service IN AND OF ITSELF is an all-important & VITAL contribution.

Yes: Vital. Absolutely Essential!
 
It does not matter whether you only served 3 days a week or every other week (AKA shavua-shavua, which for guys equals 1.5 years of service, not 3).
 
It does not matter the sheer uselessness of your role. (Some army duties are made up out of thin air simply to fulfill the demand.)
 
It doesn’t matter if you served as, say, a jeep mechanic (which you chose, not out of Zionist idealism, but in order to get a head start on the vocation you’re aiming for after your reluctant army service ends), and while yes, of course an army needs expert jeep mechanics, they don’t need SO MANY.

In other words, the actual job is important but you personally are expendable. The IDF has a surplus of jeep mechanics. Yet despite that, you have made an all-important contribution to your country and shared the burden -  unlike those parasitic yeshivah bums. [sarc]
 
It doesn’t matter if you are recruited into a role which you PHYSICALLY CANNOT perform, such as an 18-year-old Moroccan pixie from Dimona assigned to the fire brigade when she lacks the upper body strength to manage the high-powered fire hose.

And because even 2 girls together are not strong enough to handle the hose, they need a male colleague to join them in order for the girls to simply pass the test.

How on earth is this kind of assignment remotely rational or productive?

(Just for knowing, fire fighters serve in the IAF [Israeli Air Force] as part of the on-call emergency team at the runway for incoming fighter jets. Part of the fire-training is sawing through the window of the cockpit of a burning plane to extract the pilot. This needs to be done carefully so as not to decapitate the pilot in the process. Do I really need to explain that most teenage girls not only lack the basic physical strength for such maneuvers, but lack even the potential of gaining the necessary muscle unless they take steroids? I guess I do, because the army has girls serving in the IAF fire brigade! Someone should really tell the fellows in the top-brass…)

It doesn’t matter if you spent a massive part of your “army” service noshing on American candy bars while watching American sitcoms in an air-conditioned room on an IDF base (which does nothing to protect us from our enemies, unless of course, ISIS savages faint at the smell of chocolate-peanut breath and the sound of scripted punchlines).
 
The fact that you are officially enlisted in the IDF means that you are paying your dues to society.

Not All Service is Equal

So according to this mentality, it doesn’t matter WHAT you do in the army, nor how useless or useful your particular role is in the army.
 
Just the barebones fact that you are enlisted awards you with social credit.
 
To be clear: I’m NOT talking about combat and essential military non-combat duties.
 
I appreciate combat soldiers and all the non-combat yet essential military personnel working for our national security.

Just for knowing, when I pass through a checkpoint, whether at a mall or the Kotel or anywhere else, I tell the soldier or security guard, "Hashem yishmor otcha, tizkeh l'mitzvot - May Hashem protect you & and may you continue to merit doing mitzvot."

So while I write against the forced draft for females & yeshivah bachurs, it's not from a lack of appreciation for what effective IDF positions do.

I fully realize that many soldiers (and police & security guards for that matter) are prepared to suffer trauma, injury, and even death (chas v'shalom) so that I and everyone else in the country can live here.

However, hungover kvetchy moppers are not anywhere in the same league—which Israelis acknowledge. But what many Israelis don’t acknowledge is that the hungover kvetchy moppers and the pixie fire girls DON’T CONTRIBUTE AT ALL IN ANY WAY. Their service was meaningless. It was nothing.
 
Many Israelis cannot emotionally face this fact.

Reluctant "Heroes"?

Furthermore, this is the attitude expressed by many Israelis:

“Paying your debt to society.”

I’m not saying that Israelis use this exact term. But many express that attitude when talking about their army service.
 
That’s how many Israelis see their army service.

And again, they see army service this way even if they did nothing useful for 2 or 3 years. They paid their debt to society. They shared their part of the burden.
 
If you’re American, you’re probably familiar with that phrase being utilized to describe the purpose of prison (which is also an absurd concept. How does sitting in a cell pay any kind of debt to society?).
 
In contrast to what you generally see on English-language Jewish media, which focuses on combat soldiers (who are of course going to be more enthusiastic and idealistic about their service), the non-essential jobnik Israelis actively pursue the least demanding & fulfilling roles in the army.

They don’t want to be there and focus on getting through the army in the least demanding way possible.

The Fast-Track to Greatness?

Also, because I initially started out in Israel among the dati-leumi crowd, which tends to be more idealistic and patriotic, I rarely encountered the other Israelis who think army service is just something of a drag that you need to get through in order to earn basic worth as a citizen—AND feel superior to non-serving charedim….EVEN IF YOU AREN’T JEWISH and the despised charedim are fully shomer Torah & mitzvot.
 
And this is a HUGE thing that needs attention.
 
Because of this mentality (“Army service over all”), this means that a non-Jewish Ukranian thug officially enlisted in the IDF (even if he does nothing) has social worth while someone on the level of Rav Kanievsky is considered a parasite, chas v’shalom.

The same is true of the daughter of a Jewish father and the non-Jewish woman he brought over from Russia or Thailand or England.

Her army service grants her social & cultural superiority over a non-serving Torah Jew.
 
That’s right—in Eretz Yisrael, where Jews & Torah are more important than anything else.
 
To repeat: A non-Jew of Jew-hating lineage (i.e., many Ukrainians) can acquire cultural & social superiority over fully shomer Torah & mitzvot Jews (including tzaddikim) simply by waving the magic wand of army “service.”
 
Do you think that’s a coincidence of propaganda?

​I don’t. Definitely not.
 
Let’s go on.

The Crucial Question Tearing Society Apart:
​Is Israel Located in the Middle East...or Candy Land?

The thing is, if you bring up to your average Israeli any kind of judgment with regard to army service (“But why is a girl who sits in her office all day watching pirated movies on her cell phone and doing literally nothing else for her entire service—except showing the base an American movie one night—considered as having shared the burden? Why is her army “service” so important?”), they either get stunned speechless or angry.
 
(This is why I never bring this up to non-charedi Israelis. Actually, that's not completely true. I did bring it up twice as you'll soon see. Once, very carefully; and another time, quite by accident, which I kind of regretted later.)

Disturbingly, many Israelis never considered the VALUE of their service.

Why should meaningfulness or military usefulness be important to a tiny nation surrounded by some of the most vicious & savage terrorists on the planet?
 
Are we living in the Middle East or in Candy Land?

Quite frankly, some of us are concerned about massive armies of bloodthirsty Jew-haters on every border—and the fifth column WITHIN our borders.

​Can't we focus on that?
 
Yet certain types of Israelis never consider the concept of military usefulness. (That’s scary because it’s such an obvious lack of logic that the only reason for this can be brainwashing and propaganda.)
 
And they can get angry because they don’t appreciate the idea that all their “suffering” (i.e., undergoing basic training for nothing, then carrying out boring & meaningless roles) was for naught.

Or because something on which they hang their “rights” as a citizen is actually meaningless in the scheme of things—if you look at the whole situation from a purely rational point of view.

Especially with non-Jewish Russian soldiers or the non-Jewish children of Israeli intermarriage, they get their socially inferred "superiority" over fully Torah Jews simply because of their army enlistment. Ta-dah!
 
The dati-leumi are more aware of this contradiction, partly because their girls tend to do sherut leumi rather than the army, and so they’re already aware of the reasons why not EVERYONE needs to be in the army.

M-16s for Boys & Uzis for Girls

Yet in my early years in Eretz Yisrael, I only occasionally ran into this attitude of reluctant service.

It generally came from secular girls who complained about how meaningless & frustrating their service felt, stupid regulations and capricious commanding officers, and in the case of guard duty—fear of having to actually use their weapon and training.
 
As the wife (who is now fully frum and a really lovely person) of my husband’s brother told me, “When I was out there guarding the base, I was so scared! I kept hoping that nothing would ever happen because despite my training, I really didn’t feel up to actually fighting. I decided to myself that if worse came to worse, I would just let the male soldiers handle it.”

She looked at me. “I really don’t think that girls are cut out for this kind of thing. Do you?”
 
Obviously, she couldn’t say that during her service because a guard cannot have a preset plan to duck out during an attack.

(And it actually happened at one base, when a male soldier turned tail under a surprise attack, which led to several deaths on base.)

​But my sister-in-law was genuinely frightened at the prospect of a machine gun battle. She’s a quiet, gentle, lovely soul and not cut out for gun battles. And that was her enforced, reluctant, share-the-burden service to her country (which again, wasn't real service; she didn't do anything).
 
Another secular Israel girl told me, “We carried Uzis—with no bullets! The boys got M-16s with ammunition, but the girls got empty Uzis that we HAD to carry around all the time! What for? It was so stupid!”
 
(FYI: My son claims this is no longer true, that there is no longer a gender split over who gets the Uzis and who gets the M-16s, and also girl-soldiers no longer go about with empty rifles.)
 
But later, as a young married woman accompanying my husband in kiruv, I was exposed to the completely brainwashed Israelis, as you’ll see from the following examples...

Story #1: "At Least He Did His Army Service."

Here’s an example of just how deep this irrational mentality goes:
 
During our early years of marriage, my husband (who learned in kollel full-time) worked part-time alongside secular mildly Leftist Israeli university students who all wore long hair pulled back in ponytails.

​During free moments, these young men enjoyed interacting with my husband via chatting or short ‘n’ friendly religious debates.
 
Accompanying my husband, I mostly just listened.
 
Yet curious to the extent of the insistence on the overriding importance of army service for all no matter what, I ended up asking one of the guys about his thoughts on the issue while my husband was nearby.
 
This university student was a particularly nice and intelligent guy.
 
First, I acknowledged the importance of combat soldiers and any other role necessary for security—whether it was the cook who fed the soldiers or the guy sitting behind a computer in Intelligence.
 
Soldiers need to eat. And technology plays a huge role in security these days.
 
I also emphasized that I was not looking to argue or criticize, but simply wanted to understand out of genuine curiosity.
 
Then I presented him with a theoretical (yet actual) situation in which an Israeli serves a non-essential army position, then immediately leaves the country to settle in Europe or North America, and never contributes in any way to the State of Israel.
 
Then I contrasted that to a guy (frum, of course) who never serves in the IDF, but pays taxes, gets married and raises a family in Israel (contributing to the population). As a consumer and a citizen, he contributes naturally to the Israeli economy and society in a positive way. He gives tzedakah to help his fellow poor.
 
Then I asked the big questions:
​
  • Who really made a contribution to Israeli society, to Medinat Yisrael? ​
  • And is it okay that the second guy never served in the army?
 
To his credit, the university student spent several moments giving the questions serious thought.
 
He even paused in his pondering to reassure me that he definitely understood where I was coming from and that he understood and even appreciated the point (which, because of all the propaganda—my word, not his—he’d never considered).
 
Then he continued to mull it over.

​Interestingly, his facial expressions and the way he made fists showed that he was actually wrestling with the question.
 
But finally, he shook his head and said, “I see what you’re saying—I definitely understand and think you have a point, but”—he grimaced and shook his head—“but I just”—he shook his head again and knocked his fists against the desk. “I just think that”—he took a deep breath—“at least the first guy did army service. At least he did that.”
 
“Even though he ultimately contributed nothing to the country?” I said.
 
He winced and held up his hands, shaking his head, “I know…I understand the point—and it’s a good question! But I just can’t—” His hands fell with a smack on the desktop and he looked me in the eye. “At least he did his army service.”
 
“So he contributed more than the other guy who didn’t do the army?” I said.
 
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah. That’s right.”
 
I thanked him very nicely and told him how much I appreciated his time & honesty, then turned back to where my husband was talking to someone else.

​I was sad because the university student was a nice and intelligent person and he was willing to listen to an opposing idea. And he DID get it, but simply could not overcome his programming.
 
But it taught me a big lesson.

​The dedication to the idea of "army service for all" is deep-seated to the point of irrationality. 

Story #2: How Dare She Not Swing Her Ponytail for the Cause!

​Later, I read an article regarding a male Israeli singer who objected to a young female singer winning an award for her music.
 
“She never served in the IDF!” he protested. “How can we grant an award to someone who doesn’t even fulfill the basic obligation of every Israeli citizen?”
 
The article grew even more ridiculous and perplexing as it revealed that his oh-so heilige army service consisted of the army choir. And that would have been her army service, too.
 
If you haven’t seen the girls of the IDF choir, this oh-so vital military service consists of them singing while swinging their hips and ponytails and wearing an IDF uniform shirt that’s unbuttoned too low. (Actually, I think their performances are even more daring and competitive now.)
 
And then of course, religious male soldiers are raked across the coals because they don’t want to watch their sisters objectifying themselves. Such fanatics!
 
Anyway, this male singer was outraged that she hadn’t served in this all-important military position—how disloyal and unpatriotic, shirking her military duty when EVERYONE ELSE serves their time! How dare she receive an award!
 
Anyway…

Story #3: Armored Corps Avoidance Anxiety Disorder (ACAAD)

What clinched it for me was a run-in with a young Israeli baalat teshuvah-in-progress, whom I met at a Shabbaton where my husband was working.
 
This young woman became convinced of the truth of Torah and took upon herself Torah and mitzvot, plus attended classes and read books—but she was agonizingly conflicted.
 
She approached me, then started asking me about some standard issues that people have when making the BT transition. And she was asking in an increasingly angsty manner.
 
And I empathized with her, having gone through it myself. So I just calmly answered her issues as best I could.
 
But she grew increasingly overwrought and I thought that maybe I wasn’t expressing myself coherently enough (Hebrew being my second language and all), so I pleasantly suggested that she ask the people whose classes she attended back home. They’d heard these questions repeatedly and have no problem discussing these issues.
 
“I did ask them!” she insisted. “But I just…”
 
And then she kept expressing her conflict over it all.
 
That’s when I understood she was in the very normal transition stage of teshuvah.

This stage pops up again and again throughout life each time you need to cross another bridge in your lifelong journey of continuous self-transformation.
 
(I always really hate this stage because it feels like a hermit crab without its shell, but it’s a normal & necessary part of the teshuvah process. Please see What's Stopping You from Making Real Change? for more.)
 
Basically, her head is in one place (what the rabbis explained to her) while her heart is in another place (what she still feels is correct).
 
In other words: inner conflict. Yuck.
 
So I realized I couldn’t help her more than her rabbis and rebbetzins already were. You can’t hand people their Yiddishkeit, hashkafah, and emuna on a silver platter.

​After all is said & done, we all have to work for it and that’s just the reality of the process.
 
So I just remained sympathetic, but didn’t say much because transition is a really angsty place to be, and empathy and patience is often the only way to respond. Ultimately, they need to work through it themselves somehow.
 
But she pressed on, this time about army service.
 
“Everyone in my family goes into the armored corps!” she said. “My parents, my uncles, my siblings, my cousins—everyone! It’s our family tradition! Yet I’m the only who’s not. And they keep asking me, they keep pressuring me about it—‘You need to participate too! You also need to give to your country! Why can’t you keep Shabbat & kosher in the armored corps?' ”
 
Now, this is very normal albeit distressing. Israeli baalei teshuvah who still live at home can go through heck with their families.

​I learned of this distressing dynamic when I encountered the Neve girls in the Israeli section. I noticed that many of them looked stoic and even miserable, but I didn’t understand why. They seemed very committed to Yiddishkeit, so why were they so unhappy?
 
Then one day, when a friend & I expressed our friendly envy of the Israeli girls who already knew Hebrew (obviously) and therefore, had a much easier time learning Chumash and the like, one Israeli girl suddenly blurted out with great bitterness, “Well, you Americans are so lucky! You don’t know what it’s like for us. We’re here in Neve for the week and get all this inspiration and support, but every Shabbat, we have to go back to our families and deal with keeping Shabbos & kashrut in a secular home, plus being argued with and attacked for all our frumkeit and new hashkafot! But YOU never have to deal with THAT on a regular basis! You're spoiled!”
 
And she was right.

We Anglos have the opportunity to ensconce ourselves within a BT seminary or yeshivah without being forced into the old environment every week, not to mention the unwanted confrontations with disapproving family members and “friends.”
 
These young Israeli baalei teshuvah can have a very, very hard time.
 
So it apparently was with this the young woman I encountered at the Shabbaton.
 
And as I tried gently answering her, she kept cutting me off, repeating the same questions, and getting more overwrought.
 
But one thing didn’t make sense to me at that time.
 
Why was it so important for her, as a girl, to go into the armored corps with the tanks and all that?

Why was that such an issue? (Remember, at that time, I still hadn’t realized how deep the propaganda went in the minds of secular Israelis.)
 
So I said, “Wait a minute. I don’t understand something. You’re saying how important to your family it is for you to join the tankistim, but why?”
 
And her eyes popped wide open, her mouth shut, and she straightened up. And she didn’t say a word.
 
Because she didn’t respond, I thought maybe I hadn't been clear, so I decided to ask in another way: “I mean, girls don’t actually go in the tanks, right?”
 
A laugh burst out of her. “Oh no, not at all!” she said. “Of course girls don’t go out to battle!” She kept laughing and rolling her eyes.
 
“Okay,” I said, pleasantly. “So what would you be doing there?”
 
She gave a short incredulous laugh. “I would be serving!”
 
“Okay,” I said. “But doing what?”

I honestly wanted to know.

Because she and her family were obviously so overwrought about her not enlisting in the armored corps, I was trying to figure out WHY her enlistment was of such vital importance to them. I felt I was missing some vital piece of information.
 
Now she started stammering and just kept repeating how everyone in her family served in the armored corps and that this was just what her family did and she was letting everyone down by not serving.
 
And I was becoming increasingly bewildered. So I kept probing for the reason why her service was so essential.

​I mean, what was she, as a girl, going to be doing for the armored corps that was so vital to the military capabilities of the IDF?
 
She frowned and wrinkled her nose at me and gave me a crooked smile. “Well, I don’t KNOW,” she said, “because I haven’t actually enlisted, so I don’t KNOW what they would assign me.”
 
Wanting to be helpful, I prompted her: “Well, what did your sisters and female cousins do in the armored corps?”
 
She started stammering out answers again, like all sorts of stam busywork that her female relatives carried out.
 
“But what did that DO for the military effort?” I said. “I mean, how did that help the armored corps exactly?”
 
Finally, she pulled up and stared out me with a slightly opened mouth and wide eyes.
 
I realized I’d crossed some kind of line, but wasn’t sure what.
 
“I honestly wish to understand,” I tried to explain. “That’s why I keep asking. I’m honestly trying to understand why a girl serving in the armored corps is so important.”
 
Then she stared at me one moment more, turned around, and left.
 
And she avoided me for the rest of Shabbat.
 
I felt really bad at the time because I felt like I’d pushed her over some kind of edge. I’d engaged in a confrontation without even realizing it. And I wasn’t looking to break or crush anyone.

I tried to make it up to her by being really nice and non-threatening during the rest of Shabbat, but every time I approached her, her eyes widened and she took off.

Oh dear.
 
But that & the discussion with the thoughtful university Leftist clinched it for me: There is a cult-like mentality regarding IDF service that overrides all reason and logic.

Media Incitement

To further hammer home this point, Ynet military correspondent Yossi Yehoshua has publicly stated on Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) that there is currently a surplus of IDF soldiers and that in only 2 more years, that surplus will reach 17,000. (Please see We Don’t Need More Charedi Soldiers for more.)
 
So why all the pressure?
 
Ironically, despite this secular Israeli mentality of “Army Service Over All,” many of those same people don’t care much whether charedim serve.

Because they wish they didn’t have to serve, many of these same people aren’t so upset by charedim avoiding the draft. It makes sense to them. So it depends who. Some resent the seeming unfairness, others are apathetic.

It's a contradiction, no?

Why is there such a contradiction? It's because much of the outrage, resentment, and self-righteousness isn't really real. It's media-created.
 
You have certain Jewish media & politicians whipping people into a frenzy about an issue that, on their own, many actually don’t care much about.
 
Why?
 
There clearly is some kind of an agenda at work here.
 
Why else is such propaganda and brainwashing needed? To what means?
 
The reason why it’s important to know that this mentality exists is because when you read a newspaper article written in self-righteous indignation or when you encounter a fellow Jew condemning charedi avoidance of army service & glorifying female participation ("We don't care about decapitating pilots in burning jets! More grrrl power!"), it’s important to realize the basis for much of this resentment and the feelings of victimhood.

Like, who is really victimized by a yeshivah bachur learning Gemara in yeshivah rather than watching American sitcoms as a "soldier" on an army base?

Some Jewish media sets out to convince people that because charedim do not face an all-out mandatory draft, then non-charedim are being victimized by this fact.
 
(BTW, there are 3000 charedim serving in the IDF right this moment—mostly in combat units.)
 
To sum up:

The self-righteousness, resentment, and feelings of victimhood are mostly not based on logic or reason, but simply a result of media incitement & propaganda INTENDED to whip people’s emotions into the above-mentioned states.  

For more stand-alone posts in this series (for which I haven't yet figured out a title), please see:
  • Sharing What Burden Exactly? The Unspoken Elephant in the Room
  • What's Happening to the Zionist Dream?
  • Have You Ever Wanted to Know What Basic Training is Like for Serious Delinquents & Teenage Ex-Cons? Here's Your Chance!
  • The Keleh 6 Mesivta
Picture
Now that's funny. I don't see the State of Israel here ANYWHERE. Huh...
14 Comments
londonmale
18/6/2019 02:39:25

It requires an addition to basic training.
If all IDF soldiers, whether combat or not, are taught how to clean and fire a weapon, it is useful.
Because sadly you just never know when they may need that in civilian life.
But if they are also taught first aid skills, and basic vehicle mechanics, then these are also very valuable in both army and civilian life.
It wouldbe amazing if all IDF service had some Torah classes too...well we can dream.
I actually know a man who combined IDF service with Shirut Leumi.
He served with distinction in the fiercest fighting of Operation Protective Edge, but also spent a year helping the children of low income troubled Haredi families with childcare and life skills.
That shows a viable and Heimishe way to serve Israel for someone who is not especially academic and who would struggle in Yeshiva.

Reply
Myrtle Rising
18/6/2019 11:32:37

Hi, Londonmale,

I agree with most of your points here.

And I want to express gratitude for your friend's military & social service.

I'm also thinking maybe I need to better clarify my own position in future posts. Maybe I haven't done a good job of clarifying that.

So...I'm not against frum boys joining the IDF, and I very much wish that the IDF ran according to halacha rather than Erev Rav ideology. (For example, Elor Azariyah should never have served even 1 second in prison, nor should he have even been put on trial.)

And like you mentioned, in a truly Jewish army, Torah classes would be part of the service.

Many of the soldiers themselves are fine Jews dedicated to the Jewish people.

Many of the officials in charge at the very top are not.

Personally, I follow the ideology of the rabbanim quoted toward the beginning of the following article:
https://matzav.com/who-backed-chareidi-enlistment/

I oppose a mandatory draft for yeshivah bachurim and all females.

And I opposed the propaganda of certain media outlets & politicians, along with the misplaced priorities shown by some politicians and military officials, who seem to feel that drafting yeshivah bachurs & females at all costs (even when there is a surplus or when they are not qualified) should be a main focus when we live in such a very dangerous region.

Thank you very much for your comment.

Reply
elisheva
18/6/2019 13:05:07

Very good article. You didn't mention the issue of Arabs not serving and the many benefits this confers on them (they start working/studying much younger and get a head start on their financial life and their family life.). Why does this not bother anyone? If it is a draft for all, let it be for all.

Unfortunately one of the main goals of the IDF is to crush the patriotic and Jewish spirit, and take soldiers on tours of churches and punish them for heaven forfend killing the enemy. How many national religious soldiers take off their kippa in the army? Why are there no national religious soldiers in the top brass? Take a look at Blue and White, a line up of leftie ex commanders in chief.

Reply
Myrtle Rising
18/6/2019 13:45:35

Hi, Elisheva,

Thank you very much for bringing up these points that were not mentioned in the article. They're very important to know.

And yeah, the line-up of ex-commanders-in-chief on the Left says it all: agenda. And not a good agenda either.

Thanks!

Reply
bracha
18/6/2019 19:27:12

In this era of technology, all the brouha about 'drafting' more and especially concentrating on the chareidim is a real scam. The whole goal here is to secularize as many of the observant Jewish youth as possible. There are articles about how they do not need more soldiers. There's an agenda here. Those who are at the helm now are mostly extreme leftists who have no belief in G-D whatsoever and are just part of thw global movement of taking G-D out of the equation altogether, r'l. This is also the main reason the ultra Orthodox do not want to have any part of an army calling itself Jewish and doing everything to deJudaize it. The Erev Rav are hard at work now more than ever. Only with the coming of Moshiach will things get to be how they should be.

Reply
Myrtle Rising
18/6/2019 20:56:15

That's it in a nutshell, Bracha. (You're good at that, aren't you?)

Thanks very much for this comment.

Reply
Hava link
19/6/2019 10:55:28

Why all this craziness? It's Mitzrayim in Eretz Yisrael, that's why! If you need, I'll explain more when I get back from my busy day.

Great series. Thanks for explaining all this from the inside for us.

Reply
Myrtle Rising
19/6/2019 12:21:23

Hmm, definitely sounds intriguing, Hava.

Looking forward to hearing more when you get back!

Thank you very much.

Reply
Hava link
19/6/2019 22:01:59

I'll try to keep this brief because I could go on and on about it.

Both you and Bracha mentioned the Erev Rav in your comments on this post, as have many of us over the years of Jewish geula- and religious-based blogs.

Consider where the ER originally came from. They were Mitzriim from Mitzrayim who acted as though they wanted to convert to the Israelite religion (or whatever it might have been called then), right? HQB"H tried to stop Moshe from converting them, but didn't succeed.

And are there not sources that say that Par'o sent them to give us trouble through all the generations?

We know from the Torah that Par'o said: Be wise with them...meaning us.

The kinds of things you describe here in this series seem to me to be what he meant. Every time you write, "secular Israeli mentality," "irrational mentality," "cult-like mentality," and similar phrases, try replacing these expressions with "MITZRI MENTALITY" and see how that fits. Some examples of how this might apply:

*the Mitzrim were strongly into same-gender attraction and other kinds of gender-based immorality.
*Par'o in particular was into reversing work roles for Hebrew men and women. Boring jobs for men and jobs too demanding in strength for women, and possibly more that our oral Torah sources spell out in detail.
*Insisting on immodesty of all kinds stems from Mitzri culture. Singing and dancing, and whatever, you name it...
*Unkosher food...well, you can imagine.

And a lot of us fell for all these and more. That's why 80% of us lost the desire to return to the Land H' promised us, and subsequently perished in Makat Hoshekh.

But the worst part of it all is that the ER successfully implanted their "native" culture here as well. In Eretz haQodesh, thousands of years later! This is what we must expose and fight against in order to restore qedushah.

I have a question about the MITZRI practice of qishoof: Do you think it is possible that how the people you interacted with ended up with their conclusions could be based on something deeper than brainwashing, agenda-pushing or media incitement?

In any case...my proposition is:

CANDY LAND = MITZRAYIM IN ERETZ YISRAEL.

Any questions?

Reply
Myrtle Rising
19/6/2019 22:55:34

Hava,

The penny just fell for me when you mentioned the gender-role reversals in Mitzrayim and how this is repeated in the army. I hadn't thought of it, but it makes so much sense!

Now that you mention it, this also occurred on those rabidly anti-Torah kibbutzim in the early days.

Your question about qishoof is intriguing. In the US, it's certainly obvious to see signs of the occult in Hollywood programming, which I think is why so many celebrities present themselves as so into Eastern mysticism.

Eastern mysticism has become popular with Israelis attracted to India & the Far East, but as far as with the leaders here?

I don't feel I've seen signs of it, but I wouldn't rule it out.

The Erev Rav are excellent at manipulating Jews through fear, inciting feelings of desperation and panic.

Even the Golden Calf episode was based on fear. Yes, there's an occult aspect to it, but the Golden Calf, as we know, is also symbolic of materialism.

Through fear, the Erev Rav at that time manipulated the Jews into debauchery & other horrible sins.

Erev Rav are also concerned about their own feelings of security by following whoever seems like the biggest bully on the block, which is why they insisted on keeping one foot in the camp of the Jews and one foot in the camp of the Mitzrim, and why they were always looking back at Mitzrayim, even after they joined the Jews.

They felt that Moshe Rabbeinu's power came from the Taurus constellation, and not his profound humility and emuna.

So they can acknowledge the greatness of our Gedolim, but they cannot acknowledge the true source of that greatness.

As another modern-day example, the early political leaders were torn between allying themselves to Russia or to the US. They chose the US out of prudence, not because they feel aligned with Constitutional US values. As everyone knows, the early political leaders were Communists. Yet they chose America. They look to see who seems more powerful and take shelter under those wings.

I know that you know everything written here, but I'm just thinking out loud, inspired by your comment.

Thanks very much, Hava.

Reply
Hava
20/6/2019 09:05:13

"The Erev Rav are excellent at manipulating Jews through fear, inciting feelings of desperation and panic...Through fear, the Erev Rav at that time manipulated the Jews into debauchery & other horrible sins."

"Erev Rav are also concerned about their own feelings of security...which is why...they were always looking back at Mitzrayim, even after they joined the Jews."

Yes! You've caused us to feel the soft underbelly of the ER and shined a bright light upon it for all to see. THEY ARE DEATHLY AFRAID AND PROJECT THEIR FEAR ONTO US AND ESPECIALLY OUR CHILDREN.

And they are like dogs who appear to lead, but look back to their masters to get direction. All we have to do is say NO! in a unified voice, if we can manage that.

Myrtle Rising
20/6/2019 21:09:50

Baruch Hashem, more & more people are waking up to the need to do exactly that. (We just need to STAY awake!)

Thank you very much, Hava.

bracha
19/6/2019 23:24:13

Ladies: Simply put, the Erev Rav came along just for the purpose of destroying the Jewish people. H' only allowed them to come along to get us to the the point in history where we can return with permission by the nations as a people to EY. The leftist, bolshevik initiators of the secular zionist movement were Erev Rav, but at the beginning society was still not at that completely amoral point, so there was some Jewishness to the creation of the State. Today, it is completely ruled by the Erev Rav, except for a few real Jews. The IDF, as was even written about, is now led by many pagan cultist leaders and there's no more hiding behind the mask. They have one goal and that is to deJudaize the army and as evil has no shame, they're just blatant about their true goals. The leaders of the Mitzrim, the most depraved people of that era, were the sons of Bilaam, who were also the court magicians. Chazal tell us that there are ten measures of kishuf (black magic) in the world and Egypt possessed nine of them. This is the reason they have so much power throughout the millenia; this is the power of the sitra achra. This is why it is such a difficult battle and as the Gaon of Vilna and Chazal, in general, warned us that they will be our greatest enemies at the end of days. We know Moshiach tzdkeinu is not far behind and, hopefully, he will arive sooner than we think and then it will be the end of our enemies, from within and without!

Reply
Myrtle Rising
19/6/2019 23:57:23

What a geshmak comment, Bracha.

I'm just going to quibble with one point (and maybe I misunderstood?) and that's the motivation of Erev Rav:

Based on what I remember reading in the Kli Yakar, the Erev Rav's motivation for joining with Bnei Yisrael had to do with their own self-interest. Yes, they are out to destroy us, but not in the way Amalek is.

Meaning, their motivation isn't our destruction per se (although that's the result), but their own self-protection, if that makes sense.

They realize Hashem is powerful, but don't acknowledge Him as the Only Power & Source of All. They fear rejection and thus loss of protection, so they keep us in a state of fear so we won't reject them.

Yet they keep their foot in other camps they perceive as powerful.

They are also addicted to Mitzrayim & everything it stands for, which is another reason why they can't fully integrate as Jews.

(Although Chabad's Tanya says that after Mashiach comes, the Erev Rav will be like how we are now, needing to work via Torah learning to achieve good middot because they are not rooted in the Tree of Life/Eitz HaChaim like regular Jews: http://www.chabad.org/library/tanya/tanya_cdo/aid/1029387/jewish/Epistle-26.htm.)

And again, they rule by keeping us in a state of fear.

There's sources other than the Kli Yakar of course (like the Vilna Gaon Bracha mentioned), but here is some of what the Kli Yakar says about Erev Rav:

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/the-kli-yakar-parshat-masei

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/the-erev-rav-strategy-following-the-biggest-bully

http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/the-kli-yakar-parshat-beshalach

And AMEN to your last sentence!

Thanks for your comment.

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