31.12.08

Radical Torah Judaism

From my vantage point here in Jerusalem, I see the Jewish people and how much compassion they truly have, so much in some cases, that they are more worried about harming those who would harm us than they are about their own safety. In other cases, people (sometimes of even greater sensitivity) have been driven to call for harsh and bloody action out of desperation at the level of suffering of all those stuck helplessly in the middle of the confusion.

The state of Israel has lost direction, lost Jewish identity, they still claim to have it, but they aren't even sure what Jewish Identity is.

Jewish Identity is Torah. 

Rabi Akiva explained it in the Talmud, Jews without Torah are like fish without water. 

It's time that we had a Jewish response to the worldwide terror campaign that threatens to engulf us all.

This isn't a new idea, it's too simple for it to be a new idea. Let's just try and approach it with new fervor, new dedication, new devotion. 

It's time to combat "terror cells" with "Torah cells."

The terror infrastructure is a model of survivability, it's impossible to stop a grassroots movement that spreads anonymously through a large and growing population.

Find a friend, a chevruta, or a couple and start your own Torah cell. Learn regularly and with as much focus and fervor as you can muster. Create prayer cells, tehillim cells, mitzwah cells. Whatever you can wherever you can. Know that this is your mission.

The intent and focus of your learning: to connect to HaShem. 

Learn in order to do, to teach, and to uphold. So that whenever you do a mitzwah, it should be informed by that learning, you should connect through that learning, through that mitzwah, back to its source, HaShem. Mitzvot aren't rituals, they're actions.

Whenever you pray, let your learning inform your prayers, connect through the learning, the prayers back to the source, HaShem. Prayer isn't reciting words from a book, it's speaking to God.
  1. Start a Torah cell today. Then spread the fire. Each cell member should start another cell, so that every person is a member of two cells, the cell they were invited to and the cell they create. 
  2. Don't overdo it. Just two cells. Devote your time and energy to your learning in those two cells.
  3. Create daily and weekly learning schedules, simple schedules you can stick to, and stick to them.
  4. Anything you learn feel free to spread through blogs, email, wikis, twitter, pass the Torahs down and up the cells.
  5. Let's unite and connect all of Am Yisrael in Torah.
  6. Pass this on.

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