בס״ד
Una ley de la física que fue expuesta primero por Sir Isaac Newton expresa que por cada acción hay una reacción igual opuesta. Fue Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, el filósofo alemán, quien por primera vez aplicó esa ley al área de las ciencias sociales. Carlos Marx, su discípulo, capitalizó la idea, pero fue Miguel Bakunin, el padre del anarquismo, el que la refinó al máximo, declarando que para obtener el resultado deseado, se debe apoyar la idea contraria, de modo que se ahonden las contradicciones hasta que, al final, se desmorone el edificio del mal, dando lugar al emerger del bien.
En resumen, la idea le saca la vuelta al principio de Esopo de “si no puedes contra la corriente, únete a ella”. La idea suena algo chiflada, estoy de acuerdo. Pero es una idea, sin embargo.
Hace cincuenta años, en la víspera de Purim, el Rebe de Lubavitch reunion a los jasidim de Jabad en el centro mundial de Lubavitch, la famosa sinagoga “770”, para una farbrenguen jasídico tradicional. Después de recitar un maamar, un discurso jasídico, el Rebe contó un chiste, en el espíritu de la festividad. Se trataba de una anécdota de un jasid que fue enviado por su rebe a cierto lugar con una extraña misión: registrarse como residente local, y votar en las elecciones. El rebe no instruyó al jasid por quien votar, o cual era el significado de tal acción. El jasid hizo caso y se puso en marcha.
Llegó el día de las elecciones, y el jasid aun no sabía por quien votar. Camino a la mesa de votación, vio a un candidato levantado en los hombros de uno de sus simpatizantes, mientras una muchedumbre alentaba: “¡Hurra! ¡Hurra!” El jasid siguió al gentío por algunas cuadras y de pronto entendió: “hu-ra”. ¡Por providencia Divina, el mensaje se le hizo claro! En hebreo, “הוא-רע” quiere decir “él es malo”. ESE era el mensaje. El jasid votó por el candidato contrincante.
No soy bueno contando chistes, especialmente cuando los tengo que explicar, pero el Rebe no tuvo problema haciendo reir a los jasidim. Luego el Rebe le pidió al público que repitieran con entusiasmo: “¡Hurra! ¡Hurra!” varias veces. El unísono de los jasidim se tornó más y más alto. El Rebe pidió silencio, y recitó un segundo ma’amar – algo bastante inusual, puesto que estos discursos solo se recitan, tradicionalmente, uno solo por farbrenguen, y solo en ocasiones especiales.
Más tarde se supo que en el mismísimo momento en el que el Rebe le pedía al público repetir las hurras en el shul en Nueva Cork, en Moscú Stalin, que tenía planes secretos de deportar a millones de judíos de Rusia occidental a la Siberia, simplemente murió.
En su época, Stalin era visto como un héroe frente al mundo: había derrotado a Hitler en el frente ruso, había traído alfabetismo y electricidad hasta la mas remota aldea de la Unión Soviética, y – su máquina de propaganda nos hacía creer – había construido una sociedad de igualdad y de recursos para todos.
Hoy en día el mundo nuevamente se encuentra hundido en la profunda oscuridad de los engaños. La nación judía se encuentra, como en aquel último día de Stalin, existencialmente amenazada, aun cuando el mundo cree lo contrario. Los horrores del Holocausto silencioso están ocultos de los ojos del mundo. Pero el pueblo judío está amenazado con extinguirse.
El mismo Rebe de Lubavitch que ayudó a salvar a los judíos de Rusia en 1953 nos advirtió desde 1967 en adelante sobre los terribles peligros que amenazarían a los judíos de Eretz Israel, y del resto del mundo, si los territorios milagrosamente liberados en la Guerra de los Seis Días fueran cedidos a los así llamados árabes “palestinos” para que crearan allí un estado. El Rebe habló de peligro a las vidas de por lo menos tres millones de judíos si semejante plan fuera si quiera discutido.
Sin embargo, tal como tristemente ocurrió en los días de Ieshaiahu HaNaví (el profeta Isaías), los del gobierno no hicieron el menor caso, y prepararon el escenario para una catástrofe. “¿Por qué cuando vine, no hallé a nadie, y cuando llamé, nadie respondió?” (Isaías 50:2). El ignorar las advertencias de Ieshaiahu le costo al pueblo judío la destrucción del Primer Templo y el exilio de Babilonia. El ignorar las advertencias del Rebe bien podría, rajamana litzlán, costarnos un nuevo Holocausto.
Sin embargo, cada gobierno de Israel ha optado por ignorar los avisos del Rebe, produciendo calculus erroneos que nos están conduciendo a la peor herida inflingida a la carne propia en la historia de nuestro pueblo. Menajem Beiguin rindió la Península del Sinaí, contra la explícita directiva del Rebe, y luego llevó a Israel al estancamiento del Líbano en vez de llevar a cabo la campaña relámpago que, según el Rebe había explicado, era necesaria. Shamir se creyó muy listo cuando, en vez de la OLP, encontró una alternativa para el autogobierno árabe “palestino” con el cual se podría negociar: Hamás. En aquel entonces parecía la cosa más sensate a hacer, si se opta, claro, por ignorar la advertencia del Rebe.
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Entonces se nos vino el fiasco de Oslo. El tan equivocadamente llamado “proceso de paz” vino acompañado de un coro de jasidim de Jabad que hacía eco de las admoniciones del Rebe sobre los peligros de negociar con lo que no debe ser negociado. Pero los gobiernos de Israel y los medio de comunicación hicieron caso omiso de las advertencias, y en su lugar lanzaron una sombra de desinformación, haciéndole al público creer que las cosas se dirigían en buena dirección, que la paz estaba al doblar de la esquina, que la tierra podía ser dividida de manera segura entre “ambos pueblos”, y que la democracia y la diplomacia sostenían la llave de nuestra redención final.
Carlos Marx se equivocaba, entre otras cosas, cuando afirmó que la religión es el opio de las masas. El opio de las masas es el conjunto de los medios de comunicación. La gente lee los diarios, escucha la radio, ve la televisión, o lee/ve/oye las noticias en el Internet. Se sienten que tiene el mundo al alcance de sus dedos, que lo saben todo, y se reducen a ser la mera barra deportiva de lo que sea que se les vende como “bueno y progresivo”.
Así, intoxicadas por los medios, y mal guiadas por la los delirios de arrogantes gobiernos, las masas populares han sido llevadas de las narices a creer que la reciente elección de Ehud Olmert – en poder merced a un porcentaje bajísimo de votantes en proceso electoral de una baja participación sin precedentes – es una buena cosa. Olmert ha anunciado el fin del “sueño del Israel bíblico”. Tiene una lista de poblados judíos a ser destruidos, lo que en la primera etapa dejaría a unos ochenta mil judíos sin hogar. Ha renunciado expresamente a “todas las idelologías”, incluyendo ciertamente a los principios del Sionismo. Lo que planea ahora es un perverso revertir de un viejo eslogan. Planea darle a los árabes “dunam tras dunam”, hasta que la mayor parte de Judea y Samaria caiga en la manos de Hamás.
Voy a sonar como un bakuninista, excepto a aquellos que recuerden la anécdota narrada en algún lugar de mi cháchara: ¡Hurra, Olmert, Hurra!
Que el Todopoderoso nos salve de la calamidad presente.
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A law of physics first exposed by Sir Isaac Newton states that for every action there is an equal, opposite reaction. It was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the German philosopher, who first applied that law to the social arena. Karl Marx, his disciple, capitalized on the idea, but it was Mikhail Bakunin, the father or Anarchism, who refined it to its maximum, declaring that in order to obtain a desire result, one must support the opposite idea, so as to deepen the contradictions which would, ultimately, bring down the edifice of the wrong and allow for the right to emerge.
In short, the idea is a twist on Aesop’s principle of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. Bakunin would have expressed it like this: “if you want to beat them, support them in order to make them fall”. If you think the idea sounds insane, I agree. But is an idea, nevertheless.
In short, the idea is a twist on Aesop’s principle of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. Bakunin would have expressed it like this: “if you want to beat them, support them in order to make them fall”. If you think the idea sounds insane, I agree. But is an idea, nevertheless.
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Fifty three years ago, on the eve of Purim, the Lubavitcher Rebbe gathered the Chabad Chassidim at the Lubavitch headquarters, the famous "770" Shull, for a traditional Chassidic farbrengen. After reciting a ma’amar, classical Chassidic discourse, the Rebbe told a joke in the spirit of the holyday. It was an anecdote about a chassid who was sent by his rebbe to a certain place with a strange mission: to register as a local resident, and to vote in the local elections. The Rebbe has had not told the chassid whom to vote for, or what was the relevance of such action. But the chassid listened and went there.
When the elections came, the chassid still didn’t know whom to vote for. On his way to the voting booth, he saw a candidate being held on one of his supporter’s shoulders, as a crown cheered him: “HURRAH! HURRAH!” The chassid followed the crowd for a few blocks and suddenly understood: “hu-ra”. By Divine Providence, the message was clear to him! “hu-ra”, in Hebrew, “הוא-רע”, means “he is evil!” THAT was the message. The chassid voted for the opposite candidate.
I’m not that good with telling jokes, especially when I have to explain why they’re funny, but the Rebbe had no problem telling it to the Chassidim, they all laughed. Then the Rebbe asked the crowd to repeat, cheerfully; “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” several times over. The crowd grew louder and louder. Then the Rebbe asked for silence, and gave over a second ma’amar – something quite unusual, since those discourses traditionally given only one per farbrengen, and only on special occasions.
It was later learned that in the very moment the Rebbe had the crowd repeat the hurrahs in the Shull in New York, back in Moscow, Stalin, who had secret plans to deport over a million Jews from Western Russia to Siberia, simply died.
In his day, Stalin looked like a hero to the world: he defeated Hitler on the Russian front, brought education and electricity to the smallest and most remote town in the far provinces of the USSR, and – his propaganda machine had everyone believe – created a just society of equality and resources for all.
Today the world is, once again, deep in the darkness of terrible misgivings. The Jewish nation is, like in Stalin’s last day, existentially threatened, while the world believes the opposite. The horrors of the silent Holocaust are hidden from the world. But the Jewish people are threatened with extinction.
The same Lubavitcher Rebbe that help save the Jews of Russia back in 1953 warned us since 1967, and thereafter, about the terrible dangers that threatened the Jews of Eretz Israel, and of the rest of the world, if the lands miraculously liberated in the Six-Day-War were to be ceded to the so-called “Palestinian” Arabs for them to create there a State. The Rebbe spoke of the danger to the lives of at least three million Jews if such a plan was even spoken of.
Yet, as it sadly happened in the day of Yeshayahu HaNavi (the prophet Isaiah), those in power did not listened, and set the scenario for a catastrophe. “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there none to answer?” (Isaiah 50:2). Ignoring the warnings of Yeshayahu cost the Jewish people the destruction of the First Temple, and the Exile of Babel. Ignoring the Rebbe’s warnings may very well, rachamanah litzlan, cost us a new Holocaust.
Yet every government of Israel has chosen to ignore the Rebbe’s warnings, coming up with erroneous calculations which are leading us to the worst self-inflicted wound of our history. Begin gave up the Sinai Peninsula against the Rebbe’s explicit directives, and got Israel stuck in the Lebanon quagmire instead of leading the quick campaign the Rebbe explained was necessary. Shamir though himself very smart when, instead of the PLO, he found a newly-founded alternative for “Palestinian” Arab rule with whom to negotiate: Hamas. Back then it seemed the sensible thing to do, choosing to ignore the Rebbe’s warning, that is.
Then the Oslo debacle came up. The misnomer of “peace process” that ensued came accompanied by the choir of Chabad Chassidim that echoed the Rebbe’s warnings about the dangers of negotiating with that which must not be negotiated. But the governments of Israel and the media chose to ignore the warnings, and instead cast a shadow of disinformation, having the public believe that things were heading for the better, that peace was right around the corner, that the land could be safely shared by “both peoples”, and that diplomacy and democracy held the key to our final redemption.
Karl Marx was wrong, amongst other things, when he said that religion is the opium of the masses. The opium of the masses is the media. People read newspapers, listed to the radio, watch TV, or read/watch/listen to the newscasts on the Internet. They feel they have the world at their fingers, that they know it all, and become reduced to cheerleading whatever is sold to them as “good and progressive.”
So, intoxicated by the media, and misguided by the delusion of arrogant governments, masses of people believe that the recent election of Ehud Olmert – in power by a record-low percentage of a record-low voting turnout – is a good thing. Olmert has announced the end of the “dream of a Biblical Israel”. He has a list of Jewish towns to be destroyed, which in the very first stage would render some eighty thousand Jews homeless. He has expressly renounced to “all ideologies”, including the basic principals of Zionism. He is now planning a perverse reverse of and old slogan. He plans to give the Arabs “dunam after dunam”, till much of Judea and Samaria fall in the hands of Hamas.
I will sound like a Bakuninite, except to those who remember the story told somewhere in my rambling: Hurrah, Olmert, Hurrah!
May the Almighty save us from the present calamity.
Fifty three years ago, on the eve of Purim, the Lubavitcher Rebbe gathered the Chabad Chassidim at the Lubavitch headquarters, the famous "770" Shull, for a traditional Chassidic farbrengen. After reciting a ma’amar, classical Chassidic discourse, the Rebbe told a joke in the spirit of the holyday. It was an anecdote about a chassid who was sent by his rebbe to a certain place with a strange mission: to register as a local resident, and to vote in the local elections. The Rebbe has had not told the chassid whom to vote for, or what was the relevance of such action. But the chassid listened and went there.
When the elections came, the chassid still didn’t know whom to vote for. On his way to the voting booth, he saw a candidate being held on one of his supporter’s shoulders, as a crown cheered him: “HURRAH! HURRAH!” The chassid followed the crowd for a few blocks and suddenly understood: “hu-ra”. By Divine Providence, the message was clear to him! “hu-ra”, in Hebrew, “הוא-רע”, means “he is evil!” THAT was the message. The chassid voted for the opposite candidate.
I’m not that good with telling jokes, especially when I have to explain why they’re funny, but the Rebbe had no problem telling it to the Chassidim, they all laughed. Then the Rebbe asked the crowd to repeat, cheerfully; “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” several times over. The crowd grew louder and louder. Then the Rebbe asked for silence, and gave over a second ma’amar – something quite unusual, since those discourses traditionally given only one per farbrengen, and only on special occasions.
It was later learned that in the very moment the Rebbe had the crowd repeat the hurrahs in the Shull in New York, back in Moscow, Stalin, who had secret plans to deport over a million Jews from Western Russia to Siberia, simply died.
In his day, Stalin looked like a hero to the world: he defeated Hitler on the Russian front, brought education and electricity to the smallest and most remote town in the far provinces of the USSR, and – his propaganda machine had everyone believe – created a just society of equality and resources for all.
Today the world is, once again, deep in the darkness of terrible misgivings. The Jewish nation is, like in Stalin’s last day, existentially threatened, while the world believes the opposite. The horrors of the silent Holocaust are hidden from the world. But the Jewish people are threatened with extinction.
The same Lubavitcher Rebbe that help save the Jews of Russia back in 1953 warned us since 1967, and thereafter, about the terrible dangers that threatened the Jews of Eretz Israel, and of the rest of the world, if the lands miraculously liberated in the Six-Day-War were to be ceded to the so-called “Palestinian” Arabs for them to create there a State. The Rebbe spoke of the danger to the lives of at least three million Jews if such a plan was even spoken of.
Yet, as it sadly happened in the day of Yeshayahu HaNavi (the prophet Isaiah), those in power did not listened, and set the scenario for a catastrophe. “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there none to answer?” (Isaiah 50:2). Ignoring the warnings of Yeshayahu cost the Jewish people the destruction of the First Temple, and the Exile of Babel. Ignoring the Rebbe’s warnings may very well, rachamanah litzlan, cost us a new Holocaust.
Yet every government of Israel has chosen to ignore the Rebbe’s warnings, coming up with erroneous calculations which are leading us to the worst self-inflicted wound of our history. Begin gave up the Sinai Peninsula against the Rebbe’s explicit directives, and got Israel stuck in the Lebanon quagmire instead of leading the quick campaign the Rebbe explained was necessary. Shamir though himself very smart when, instead of the PLO, he found a newly-founded alternative for “Palestinian” Arab rule with whom to negotiate: Hamas. Back then it seemed the sensible thing to do, choosing to ignore the Rebbe’s warning, that is.
Then the Oslo debacle came up. The misnomer of “peace process” that ensued came accompanied by the choir of Chabad Chassidim that echoed the Rebbe’s warnings about the dangers of negotiating with that which must not be negotiated. But the governments of Israel and the media chose to ignore the warnings, and instead cast a shadow of disinformation, having the public believe that things were heading for the better, that peace was right around the corner, that the land could be safely shared by “both peoples”, and that diplomacy and democracy held the key to our final redemption.
Karl Marx was wrong, amongst other things, when he said that religion is the opium of the masses. The opium of the masses is the media. People read newspapers, listed to the radio, watch TV, or read/watch/listen to the newscasts on the Internet. They feel they have the world at their fingers, that they know it all, and become reduced to cheerleading whatever is sold to them as “good and progressive.”
So, intoxicated by the media, and misguided by the delusion of arrogant governments, masses of people believe that the recent election of Ehud Olmert – in power by a record-low percentage of a record-low voting turnout – is a good thing. Olmert has announced the end of the “dream of a Biblical Israel”. He has a list of Jewish towns to be destroyed, which in the very first stage would render some eighty thousand Jews homeless. He has expressly renounced to “all ideologies”, including the basic principals of Zionism. He is now planning a perverse reverse of and old slogan. He plans to give the Arabs “dunam after dunam”, till much of Judea and Samaria fall in the hands of Hamas.
I will sound like a Bakuninite, except to those who remember the story told somewhere in my rambling: Hurrah, Olmert, Hurrah!
May the Almighty save us from the present calamity.
