Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

The 20th century Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan writes, “Morality is a flower which springs out of the plant of individuality.”

Although the Muslim world has been reticent to embrace change (much like the Haredi parties in Israel), there are signs of an ideological thaw taking place as we speak. How appropriate! Spring is the time of transformation. It is a pity the Western media acts as if social change in the patriarchal world of Islam is an impossibility. Maintaining the status quo will never solve the great problems we all face, but like a seed breaking forth in the earth, perhaps more people will begin to embrace the kind of attitude that is now surfacing on Arab media for the very first time in its history.

Recently, an American professor has become the first Jew to win the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine, popularly known as the “Arab Nobel Prize.” Stanford professor Ronald Levy, who heads of the university’s Oncology department, told Haaretz that as an American Jew married to an Israeli it never crossed his mind that he might win the Saudi-financed competition.The prize, which included $200,000, a medal, and a certificate in English and Arabic, also came with a dinner with Saudi King Abdullah. Levy’s victory is the first time in the award’s 30 years that a Jew has won, which Levy says he took as a sign that Saudi Arabia is becoming more open. Levy won the prize for his part in the development of a drug used in the treatment of many types of cancer that is being widely viewed as revolutionary.

Even more recently . . . .

February 26, 2010 — Clip No. 2414 — memri.org

Former Saudi Shura Council Member Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: The Arab Is Incapable of Individual Thinking

The following excerpts are from an interview with former Saudi Shura Council Member Ibrahim Al-Buleihi, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on February 26, 2010.

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: When we want to study a religious issue, we go back to our heritage. But when we want to study an earthy matter, such as why we are backward, while others are prosperous, we must search for the answer elsewhere, not in our heritage.

Interviewer: Where is “elsewhere”?

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: In the West. Without a doubt.

Interviewer: In the West, not the East?

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: The East only emulates [the West]. Take Japan, for example – if not for its openness to Western culture, it too would have remained backward.

[...]

The individualism of the Arab has been erased in this society…

Interviewer: What do you mean by erased individualism?

Ibrahim Al-Buleihi: He is incapable of independent thinking, and therefore, he always rejects what is rejected by society, and accepts what is accepted by society. Continue Reading

A Morning Conversation Over a Bagel and Coffee

This past Sunday morning, I was having a lovely breakfast with several Chicago Jewish friends at the local bagel and lox haunt in downtown Chicago. As we were passing the creme cheese, some of us started talking about the latest condemnation made by Vice President Biden-and one of my least favorites politicians, Madame Hillary Clinton-condemned Israel for the latest settlement construction, not in the most densely populated areas of Arab Jerusalem but in the Jewish suburbs of Gilo and most recently Ramat Shlomo- two areas that almost all Israelis regard as Jewish as Tel Aviv.

The Heretical Concept of a “Jewish” Jerusalem

The idea of a Jewish Jerusalem really irks the Obama Administration. Don’t try to confuse us with facts about the city’s ancient Judaic history. Forget the archaeology too. History means nothing here.

The soundbites and tonality of Biden’s attack were pretty shocking. Biden blames Israel for endangering American lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in Pakistan. (I am surprised the Vice President didn’t blame George Bush for the quagmire we are now in.) In an attempt to show the Jewish community of this country that Obama is being partial to his Jewish constituency, Hillary Clinton accused Israel of insulting David Axelrod, claiming that Israel is willfully undermining talks with the Palestinians.

True, the Israeli government might have shown more discretion and make their announcements a couple of weeks after Biden returned home to Washington. However, I think using a sledgehammer to kill a fly on Israel’s face in this case may be counter-productive to what Obama really needs to do, and that is-win the hearts of Israelis. Bill Clinton was a master at this technique, but Obama’s popularity in Israel pretty much says it all-it’s in single digits as we now speak. He does not inspire confidence among Israelis. The worst case scenario, Biden’s comments may inspire what columnist Melanie Philips calls, “The Obama Intifada.”

What’s Really Bothering the Palestinians?

Maybe someone should tell our President that even if Jerusalem were not the issue, the problem of Israel’s existence is actually what irks so many of these terrorist regimes. But beyond Israel, Israel’s existence is not the real epicenter of the political problems of the Middle East-it is the fear of Westernization and its values that really threatens the patriarchal house of cards that will inevitably fall. Unless the United States and Europe undergoes a collective conversion to Taliban-esque Islam, these religious fanatics will not rest until every human being in the world prays toward Mecca, while acknowledging Mohammad as their prophet.

A Presidential Progress Report D-

Since his recent presidential election, President Obama has done his best to rehabilitate some of the world’s most dangerous Islamic rogue nations, like Iran and Syria, in the name of “engagement.” How have these rogue nations responded? Syrian President Bashar Assad depicts the Obama administration as “grovelling,” and “weak.” He goes out of his way to invite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah and scoffs at the US request that he curtail his relationship with Iran. And why should he? Because Mr. Obama is making nice nice?

The editor of the Lebanese The Daily Star wrote, “The Obama administration these days provokes little confidence in its allies and even less fear in its adversaries.” Continue Reading

The Judenstein [Jewry-Stone]
[Translation by Paul Halsall]:

The story connected to the above picture was recorded by the German folklorists, the Grimm brothers, in the early nineteenth century. What follows is my translation of the story. [The German text is given at the end of this file].

In 1462 it so happened that in the Tyrol, in the village of Rinn, several Jews persuaded a poor farmer give up his little child, by paying him a lot of money. They took the child out into the forest and in the most horrible manner, martyred him there on a big stone, which is ever since called the “Judenstein” ["the Jewry-stone"].

The dead corpse they hung on a birch tree standing near a bridge. Now, the mother of the child was working in a field as the murder happened, and at once her thoughts turned to her child and without knowing why she became very afraid, and then, one after another, three fresh drops of blood fell on her hand. Full of anxiousness she hurried home and sought after her child.

Her husband led her into the room and confessed what he had done. He wanted to show her the money which had released them from poverty, but it had all transformed into leaves.

Then the father lost his mind and died of grief, but the mother went out to look for their little-child, and when she found it hanged on a tree, took it down with hot tears and carried it into the church in Rinn. And still the child lies there and is viewed by the people as a sacred child.

The Judenstein was also brought there. It is said that a shepherd chopped down the tree on which the child had hanged, but when he wanted to take it to his home, he broke a leg and had to die.

(More to Follow)

In the news from Israel this past week, we read about the latest attempt of the Haredi political parties to redefine the Law of Return in such a way, so that the Chief Rabbi would have the ultimate say as to whom the Israeli government would accept as a citizen.

This change is, of course, unprecedented and threatens to divide the Diaspora Jewish community from the community of Israel. In addition, it also threatens to undermine numerous rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court that protect the right of any Jew to return to his homeland; in effect, the proposed law essentially creates a new kind of Inquisition, where those who do not believe like the Orthodox, will be severely punished.

As I reflected upon this issue, I found myself reading a famous passage against the law of self-mutilation.

“You are children of the Lord your God. You shall not gash yourselves or shave the front of your heads because of the dead. ^For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: the Lord your God chose you from among all other peoples on earth to be His treasured people” (Deut. 14:1-2).

The ancient Canaanites, believed that lacerating the human body in the name of its deities reflected the worshipers supreme willingness to give one’s body and even soul to the sacred cult (cf. 1 Kgs 18:28). Since the famous passage of Isaac’s binding, the Torah stresses that God does not actually demand or even desire human beings to sacrifice their bodies to God. Rather, the essence of sacrifice is more of a spiritual surrender of one’s soul to the Giver of all life. Hence, sacrifice and religious devotion is best expressed by honoring life-not destroying or mutilating it-even if it is done in the Name of God. If anything, the act of self-mutilation-even when done in the Name of God-is a sign of madness and is not considered devotion, according to the Torah.

According to the ancient rabbinic commentary known as the Sifre, the early sages deconstruct the verse’s more literal meaning. In one Talmudic passage, the Sages explain that the phrase “lo titgodadu” can mean both, “do not gash yourselves”, and do not bundle yourselves together - in different groups.”

In other words, the Torah is warning us against the sin of factionalism. Given what our ancestors witnessed in the last days of the Temple, it is obvious why they believed that factionalism can only lead to destruction. In fact, one could argue that the absence of unity is in a literal, moral, psychological, sociological sense-a self inflicted wound. Continue Reading