Ask JTF for Sunday, June 21, 2009

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Shalom Chaim, what is your opinion on Ellie Weisel? I have enjoyed his work, but lost my respect for him when I saw him touring the former concentration camps with the world's biggest anti-semitic, Bsarack Hussien Obama.

Nellie the Weasel (yimach schmo vezichro) is a kapo worm who hates the Serbs and has said that the "Palestinians" are perfectly justified in rising up against Israel. I would not be surprised if he survived the Holocaust by becoming a concentration-camp guard or snitch.

[Maimonides]

Shalom Chaim and thank you as always for your hard work and answering my questions.

Do you believe that the Iranian government is behind this phony revolution by making it seem there is the possibility of a revolution or some fundamental change in their government? I think this is a strong possibility because a totalitarian regime like the one in Iran could end these protests in a heartbeat by unleashing brutal force against the protesters without caring what other countries will say.

It would seem that the Iranians would be doing this, because now Israel's leaders will foolishly believe that if they bomb Iran they will unite the Iranian people behind the Iranian government, so they must wait to see what happens. Meanwhile Iran continues to build its nuclear weapons. Furthermore, we all know the only difference between Mousavi, yimach shmo vezichro, and Ahmadinejad,yimach shmo vezichro, is that the former is more clever while the latter is more honest about his intentions.

[Secularbeliever]

Shalom Chaim,

I would like to ask you about the nature and limits of faith.  As my screenname implies I view most things from a secular perspective and I know you don't.  How much should a person accept just based on faith and how much should a person require support for their belief.

I had a discussion with the local Chabad Rabbi in which he said he believed the world is literally only a few thousand years old.  I explained that science has proven that the world is actually hundreds of millions (if not more) years old.  I explained about radioactive dating and half lives but he simply said that the Torah was right and he wasn't going to be influenced by science.

Should faith override that which is obvious and provable?  I believe in the uniqueness and destiny of the Jewish people because of the incredible history that we have had.  I believe in G-d because history and experience has shown that people are limited and need to be humble.  However, when someone tells me they know what G-d is like, or what he thinks or what his plan is I am very skeptical.  I also find it troubling when religious people look at difficult problems and throw their hands up and say the Messiah will come and these problems will be moot. 

When you look at the miracles of our time, whether it was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising when a few poorly armed Jews held off the German Army, the 1948 establishment of Israel in a War where the Jews were outnumber 100 to 1, or the six day war these were all accomplished by effort and courage.  It took faith of believing in ourselves but not faith that the laws of nature would be overridden.  In the six day war we had some luck that the Arabs parked all their fighter planes in a neat row for the IDF to take out and win the war immediately but it also took a very well trained IDF and good intelligence to tell them that the planes were sitting ducks.