<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER">
“<font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b>TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE”
MINISTRIES</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER">
<font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b>Jim & Marie Watt</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER">
<font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b>Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email:
<a href="mailto:jmbetter@gmail.com">jmbetter@gmail.com</a></b></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER">
<font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b>Web: <a href="http://www.2rbetter.org/">www.2rbetter.org</a></b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER">
November 7, 1911</p><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"><br></p>
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><b>A
Brave Rabbi Speaks Out - Posted by Front Page Magazine October 21,
2011</b></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><i><b>Editor's
note: The sermon below, delivered by Rabbi Schlomo Lewis of Atlanta
on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, 2011, has been referred to as the
“Sermon of the Century”</b></i></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“<b>Ehr Kumt” (Yiddish for “He's Coming”)</b></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I
am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the
High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our
brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and
stirred - but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too
much.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a
responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I
passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am
guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express.
I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not
by delicacy but by urgency.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious,
as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn't know it from our behavior.
During WWII we didn't refer to storm troopers and freedom fighters.
We didn't call the Gestapo, militants. We didn't see the attacks on
our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the
Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis,
thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and
humiliating the German people.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
We did not apologize for Dresden, nor for the Battle of the Bulge,
nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Evil - ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and
Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what
was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tobruk, not
just Vienna, not just Casablanca. It was the entire planet. Read
history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to
creating a Pax Germana on every continent.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Not all Germans were Nazis - most were decent, most were revolted by
the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a
living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked
away, too many cried out in lame defense - “I didn't know.” Too
many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the
atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did
nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with
those who pulled the curtains shut, and said nothing.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and
we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not
stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure
every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and
battleships and went to war to win ... to rid the world of
malevolence.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
We are at war ... yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don't put the
pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are
circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from
Times Square to London, from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the
murderers, but barbarians are radical Islamists.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is
contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It
was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage.
When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in
the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000
Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon
for the handful of aged worshipers in the Choral Synagogue, a once
majestic, Jewel in Kovno.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg
and elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“Shalom,” he said, “Your abba told me you just came back from
Lithuania.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did
you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in
the courtyard?”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes
opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into
the distance and then, he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few
feet away from the arch. The Choral synagogue was where I davened as
a child.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile
faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember on Shabbos in
1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was
Menachim Begin's mentor - he was a fiery orator, an unflinching
Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe
continued, “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos
morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed
up on the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with
eyes full of fire and cried out. 'EHR KUMT. YDN FARLAWST AER SHTETL -
He's coming. Jews abandon your city.'”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We
had lived there, thrived for a thousand years; but Jabotinsky was
right - his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
We are not in Lithuania. It is not the 1930s. There is no Luftwaffe
overhead. No U-boats off the coast of Long Island. No Panzer
divisions on our borders. But make no mistake; we are under attack -
our values, our tolerance, our freedom, our virtue, our land.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Now before some folks roll their eyes and glance at their watches let
me state emphatically, unmistakably - I have no pathology of hate,
nor am I a manic Paul Revere, galloping through the countryside. I am
not a pessimist, nor prone to panic attacks. I am a lover of
humanity, all humanity. Whether they worship in a synagogue, a
church, a mosque, a temple or don't worship at all. I have no bone of
bigotry in my body, but what I do have is hatred for those who hate,
intolerance for those who are intolerant, and a guiltless,
unstoppable obsession to see evil eradicated.
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Today the enemy is radical Islam but it must be said sadly and
reluctantly that there are unwitting, co-conspirators who strengthen
the hands of the evil doers. Let me state the the overwhelming number
of Muslims are good Muslims, fine human being who want nothing more
than a Jeep Cherokee in their driveway, a flat screen TB on their
wall and a good education for their children; but these good Muslims
have an obligation to destiny, to decency that thus far for the most
part they have avoided. The Kulturkampf is not only external but
internal as well. The good Muslims must place ads in the NY Times.
They must buy time on network TV, on cable stations, in the Jerusalem
Post, in Le Monde, in Al Watan, on Al Jazeera condemning terrorism,
denouncing unequivocally the slaughter of the innocent - thus far,
they have not. Their silence allows the vicious to tarnish Islam and
define it.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Brutal acts of commission and yawning acts of omission strengthen the
hand of the devil.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
I recall a conversation with my father shortly before he died that
helped me understand how perilous and how broken is our world; that
we are living on the narrow seam of civilization and moral oblivion.
Knowing he had little time left he shared the following - “Shal. I
am ready to leave this earth. Sure I'd like to live a little longer,
see a few more sunrises, but truthfully, I've had it. I'm done.
Finished. I hope the Good Lord takes me soon because I am unable to
live in this world knowing what it has become.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
This startling admission of moral exhaustion from a man who witnessed
and lived through the Depression, the Holocaust, WWII, Communist
Triumphalism, McCarthyism, Strontium 90 and polio, - Yet his twilight
observation was - “The worst is yet to come.” And he wanted out.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
I share my father's angst and fear that too many do not see the
authentic, existential threat we face nor confront the source of our
peril. We must wake up and smell the hookah.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“Lighten up, Lewis. Take a chill pill, some of you are quietly
thinking. You're sounding like Glenn Beck. It's not that bad. It's
not that real.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
But I am here to tell you - “It is.” Ask the member of our shul
whose sister was vaporized in the Twin Towers and identified finally
by her charred teeth, if this is real or not. Ask the members of our
shul who fled a bus in downtown Paris, fearing for their safety from
a gang of Muslim thugs, if this is an exaggeration. Ask the member of
our shul whose son tracks Arab terrorist infiltrators who target -
pizza parlors, nursery schools, Pesach seders, city buses and play
grounds, if this is paranoid hyperbole.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Ask them, ask all of them - ask the American GI's we sit next to on
planes who are here for a brief respite while we fly of on our Delta
vacation package. Ask them if it's bad. Ask them if it's real.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Did anyone imagine in the 1920's what Europe would look like in the
1940's. Did anyone presume to know in the coffee houses of Berlin or
in the opera halls of Vienna that genocide would soon become the
celebrated culture? Did anyone think that a goofy-looking painter
named Schickelgruber would go from the beer halls of Munich and jail,
to the Reichstag as Fuhrer in less than a decade? Did Jews pack their
bags and leave Warsaw, Vilna, Athens, Paris, Bialystok, Minsk,
knowing that soon their new address would be Treblinka, Sobibor,
Dachau, and Auschwitz?</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
The sages teach - “Aizehu chacham - haroeh et hanolad - Who is a
wise person - he who sees into the future.” We dare not wallow in
complacency, in a misguided tolerance and naive sense of security.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
We must be diligent students of history and not sit in ash cloth at
the waters of Babylon weeping. We cannot be hypnotized by
eloquent-sounding rhetoric that soothes our heart but endangers our
soul. We cannot be lulled into inaction for fear of offending the
offenders. radical Islam is the scourge and this must be cried out
from every mountain top. From sea to shining sea, we must stand tall,
prideful of our stunning decency and moral resilience.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Immediately after 9/11 how many mosques were destroyed in America?
None.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
After 9/11, how many Muslims were killed in America? None.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
After 9/11, how many anti-Muslim-rallies were held in America? None.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
And yet, we apologize. We grovel. We beg forgiveness.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
The mystifying litany of our foolishness continues. Should there be a
soul in Hebron on the site where Baruch Goldstein gunned down
twenty-seven Arabs an noonday prayers? Should there be a museum
praising the U.S. Calvary on the site of Wounded Knee? Should there
be a German cultural center in Auschwitz? Should a church be build in
the Syrian town of Ma'arra where Crusaders slaughtered over 100,000
Muslims? Should there be a thirteen story mosque and Islamic Center
only a few steps from Ground Zero?</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Despite all the rhetoric, the essence of the matter can be distilled
quite easily. The Muslim community has the absolute, constitutional
right to build their building wherever they wish. I don't buy the
argument - “When we can build a church or a synagogue in Mecca they
can build a mosque here.” America is greater than Saudi Arabia. And
New York is greater than Mecca. Democracy and freedom must prevail.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Can they build? Certainly. May they build? Certainly. But should they
build at that site? No - but that decision must come from them, not
from us. Sensitivity, compassion cannot be measured in feet or yards
or in blocks. One either feels the pain of others and cares, or does
not.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
If those behind this project are good, peace-loving, sincere,
tolerant Muslims, as they claim, they should know better, rip up the
zoning permits and build elsewhere.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Believe it or not, I am a dues-paying, card carrying member of the
ACLU; yet from start to finish, I find this sorry episode disturbing
to say the least.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
William Burroughs, the novelist and poet, in a wry moment wrote -
“After one look at this planet, any visitor from outer space would
say - “I want to see the manger.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Let us understand that the radical Islamist assaults all over the
globe are but skirmishes, fire fights, and vicious decoys. Christ and
the anti-Christ. God V 'Magog. The Sons of Light and the Sons of
Darkness; the bloody collision between civilization and depravity is
on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It is on the Gaza Coast and
in the Judean Hill of the West Bankaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. It is on
the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv and on the cobblestoned mall of Ben
Yehuda Street. It is in the underground schools of Sderot and on the
bullet-proofed inner-city buses. It is in every school yard,
hospital, nursery, classroom, park, theater - in every place of
innocence and purity.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Israel is the laboratory - the test market. Every death, every
explosion, every grisly encounter is not a random, bloody orgy. It is
a calculated, strategic probe into the heart, guts and soul of the
West.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
In the Six Day War, Israel was the proxy of Western values and
strategy while the Alliance was the proxy of Eastern, Soviet values
and strategy. Today too, it is a confrontation of proxies, but the
stakes are greater than East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel in
her struggle represents the civilized world, while Hamas, Hezbollah,
Al Queda, Iran, Islamic Jihad, represent the world of psychopathic,
loathsome evil.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
As Israel, imperfect as she is, resists the onslaught, many in the
western World have lost their way displaying not admiration, not
sympathy, not understanding, for Israel's galling plight, but
downright hostility and contempt. Without moral clarity, we are
doomed because Israel's galling plight ultimately will be ours. Hanna
Arendt in her classic Origins of Totalitarianism accurately portrays
the first target of tyranny as the Jew. We are the trial balloon. The
canary in the coal mine. If the Jew/Israel is permitted to bleed with
nary a protest from “good guys” then tyranny snickers and pushes
forward with its agenda.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Moral confusion is a deadly weakness and it has reached epic
proportions in the West; from the Oval Office to the UN, from the BBC
to Reuters to MSNBC, from the New York Times to Le Monde, from
university campuses to British teachers' union, from the
International Red Cross to Amnesty International, from Goldstone to
Elvis Costello, from the Presbyterian Church to the Archbishop of
Canterbury.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
There is a message sent and consequences when our president visits
Turkey and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and not Israel.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
There is a message sent and consequences when free speech on campus
is only for those championing Palestinian rights.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
There is a message sent and consequences when the media deliberately
doctors and edits film clips to demonize Israel.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
There is a message sent and consequences when the UN blasts Israel
relentlessly, effectively ignoring Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, North
Korea, China and other noxious states.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
There is a message sent and consequences when liberal churches are
motivated by Liberation theology, not historical accuracy.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
There is a message sent and consequences when murderers and
terrorists are defended by the obscenely transparent, “One man's
terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
John Milton warned, “Hypocrisy is the only evil that walks
invisible.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
A few days after the Gaza blockade incident in the spring, a
congregant happened past my office, glanced in as asked in a friendly
tone - “Rabbi, How're y' doing?”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
I looked up, sort of smiled and replied - “I've had better days.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“What's the matter? Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?”
he inquired.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“Thank you for the offer but I'm just bummed out today, and I
showed him a newspaper article I was reading.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“Madrid gay parade bans Israeli group over Gaza Ship Raid.” I
explained to my visitor - “The Israeli gay pride contingent from
Tel Aviv was not allowed to participate in the Spanish gay pride
parade because the mayor of Tel Aviv did not apologize for the raid
by the Israeli military.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
The only country in the entire Middle East where gay rights exist, is
Israel. The only country in the entire Middle East where there is a
gay pride parade, is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that
has gay neighborhoods and gay bars, is Israel.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Gays in the Gaza would be strung up, executed by Hamas if they came
out - and yet Israel is vilified and ostracized. Disinvited to the
parade.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Looking for logic?</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Looking for reason?</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Looking for sanity?</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Kafka on his darkest, gloomiest day could not keep up with this
bizarre spectacle and we “useful idiots” pander and fawn over
cutthroats, sinking deeper and deeper into moral decay, as the enemy
laughs all the way to the West Bank and beyond.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
It is exhausting and dispiriting. We live in an age that is
redefining righteousness where those with moral clarity are an
endangered, beleaguered specie.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Isaiah warned us thousands of years ago - “O ye Lehem Sheh-KIoim
Layome, Laila v'Laila, yome - Woe to them who call the day, night and
the night, day.” We live on a planet that is both Chelm and Sodom.
It is a frightening and maddening place to be.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
How do we convince the world and many of our own, that this is not
just Antisemitism, that this is not just anti-Zionism but a full
throttled attack by unholy, radical Islamists on everything that is
morally precious to us?</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
How do we convince the world and many of our own that conciliation is
not an option, that compromise is not a choice?</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Everything we are. Everything we believe. Everything we treasure, is
at risk.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
The threat is so unbelievably clear and the enemy so unbelievably
ruthless, how anyone in their right mind doesn't get it is baffling.
Let's try an analogy. If someone contracted a life-threatening
infection and we not only scolded them for using antibiotics but
insisted that the bacteria had a right to infect their body and that
perhaps, if we gave the invading infection an arm and a few toes, the
bacteria would be satisfied and stop spreading.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Anyone buy that medical advice? Well, folks, that's our approach to
the radical Islamist bacteria. It is amoral, has no conscience and
will spread unless it is eradicated. - There is no negotiating.
Appeasement is death.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
I was not a great fan of George Bush - didn't vote for him. (By the
way, I'm sill a registered Democrat.) I disagreed with many of his
policies but one thing he had right. His moral clarity was flawless
when it came to the War on Terror, the war on Radical Islamist
Terror. There was no middle ground - either you were friend or foe.
There was no place in Bush's world for a Switzerland. He knew that
this competition was not Toyota against G.M., not the Iphone against
the Droid, not the Braves against the Phillies, but a deadly serious
war, winner take all. Blink and you lose. Underestimate, and you get
crushed.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
I know that there are those sitting here today who have turned me
off. But I also know that many turned off their rabbis seventy five
years ago in Warsaw, Riga, Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Vilna. I get no
satisfaction from that knowledge; only a bitter sense that there is
nothing new under the sun.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Enough rhetoric - how about a little “show and tell?” A few weeks
ago on the cover of Time magazine was a horrific picture with a
horrific story. The photo was of an eighteen year old Afghani woman,
Bibi Aisha, who fled her abusive husband and his abusive family. Days
later the Taliban found her and dragged her to a mountain clearing
where she was found guilty of violating Sharia Law. Her punishment
was immediate. She was pinned to the ground by four men while her
husband sliced off her ears, and then he cut off her nose.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
This is the enemy.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
If nothing else stirs us. If nothing else convinces us, let Bibi
Aisha's mutilated face be the face of Islamic radicalism. Let her
face shake up even the most complacent and naive among us. In the
holy crusade against this ultimate evil, picture of Bibi Aisha's
disfigurement should be displayed on billboards, along every highway
from route 66 to the Autobahn, to the Transarabian Highway. Her
picture should be posted on every lobby wall from Tokyo to Stockholm
to Rio. On every network, at every commercial break, Bibi Aisha's
face should appear with the caption “Radical Islamic savages did
this.” And underneath - “This ad was approved by Hamas, by
Hesbollah, by Taliban, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, by Islamic
Jihad, by Fatah al Islam, by Magar Nodal Hassan, by Richard Reid, by
Ahmajinidad, by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, by Osama bin Laden, by
Edward Said, by the Muslim Brotherhood, by Al Queda, by CAIR.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“The moral sentiment is the drop that balances the sea” said
Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, my friends, the sea is woefully out of
balance and we could easily drown in our moral myopia and worship of
political correctness.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
We peer into the heavens sending probes to distant galaxies. We peer
down into quarks discovering particles that would astonish Einstein.
We create computers that rival the mind, technologies that surpass
science fiction. What we imagine, with astounding rapidity, becomes
real. If we dream it, it does, indeed, come. And yet, we are at a
critical point in the history of this planet that could send us back
into the cave, to a culture that wold make the Neanderthal blush with
shame.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Our parents and grandparents saw the swastika and and recoiled,
understood the threat and destroyed the Nazis. We see the banner of
Radical Islam and can do no less.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
A rabbi was once asked by his students ...</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
“Rabbi. Why are your sermons so stern?” Replied the rabbi, “If
a hous is on fire and we chose not to wake up our children, for fear
of disturbing their sleep, would that be love? Kinderlach, 'di hoyz
brent.' Children, our house is on fire and I must arouse you from
your slumber.”</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
During WWII and the Holocaust was it business as usual for priests,
ministers, rabbis? Did they deliver benign homilies and lovely
sermons as Europe fell, and the Pacific fell, and North Africa fell,
as the Mideast and South America tottered, as England bled? Did they
ignore the demonic juggernaut and the foul breath of evil? They did
not. There was clarity, courage, vision, determination, sacrifice,
and we were victorious. Today, it must be our finest hour as well. We
dare not retreat into the banality of our routines, glance at our
headlines and presume that the good guys will prevail.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
Democracies don't always win.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2">T</font>yrannies don't always
lose.</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
My friends - the world is on fire and we must awake from our slumber.
“EHR KUMT.” - “<u>He's coming</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">!”</span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<u><b>NOTE</b></u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><b>: Both my
wife and I commend this rabbi's sermon. Of course we do not follow
his homosexual/gay position - but </b></span><b><u>that</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">
makes his total discourse all the more damning to Radical Islam! We
lived through the Great Depression and WWII. I served in the Navy
during the latter time. And - the parallel between Hitler &
Nazism to Radical Islam is </span><u>well-taken</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">!
</span><u>Today</u><span style="text-decoration: none;"> - “Mein
Kampf” by Adolph Hitler - is a best-seller among Radical Islamists.
Read </span><u>that</u><span style="text-decoration: none;"> back into
the Rabbi's sermon! - Jim & Marie Watt</span></b></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<font size="3"><b>TO SUBSCRIBE - Please Email:
<a href="mailto:mailing-subscribe@2rbetter.org">mailing-subscribe@2rbetter.org</a></b></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<font size="3"><b>TO UNSUBSCRIBE - Please Email:
<a href="mailto:mailing-unsubscribe@2rbetter.org">mailing-unsubscribe@2rbetter.org</a></b></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<font size="3"><b>FOR ARCHIVE ARTICLES -
Web:<a href="http://2rbetter.org/pipermail/mailing/">http://2rbetter.org/pipermail/mailing/</a> </b></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT">
<br>
</p>