Reflections on a New Year...

Rosh Hashanah is just around the corner and this always prompts an overflow of reflection and thought upon the past months than any other time of year... at least for Jews! We are preparing to head into a new cycle of holidays, prayer, Shabbats, worship, avodas Hashem, mitzvot, etc... These thoughts seem, in their turn, to prompt three things - regret, satisfaction, and gratitude.
      Contemplation upon the past twelve months mainly brings forth regrets for me... .There are so many areas in which I could have done better, so many things I wish I could go back and change. If I had only spent that one hour doing something productive instead of something social - or if I had spent that other hour taking the time to pour into someone who needed help rather than retreating into my own priorities - then perhaps neither of those hours would be bemoaned as "time I can never get back." Time is a funny thing that way - as my Abba put it, there is never going to be another "now" like this "now." Every "now" is its own separate entity, unlike every other "now" that will ever exist. So how do we make each of those "nows" count? Make time to study Torah, and to pour into other people when they ask for it... and don't say "when I have time I will study; for perhaps you will never have time." That is to say, perhaps you will have time, but the time you will have in the future is not going to be the same time you have now. This is time you may be wasting, and later regretting next Rosh Hashanah.
      But contemplation also prompts satisfaction - and not only personal pride, but satisfaction in Hashem, that we have tried our hardest this year to please Him, and that perhaps we have even succeeded in a few areas. As we throw our stones into the river at Tashlich, maybe there are a few less in our hand - or maybe the sins we cast into its depths are not the same ones we cast last year. Have we won any small battles against Goliath this year? I have a paltry few to my credit, though when aligned against my regrets they seem too insignificant to matter. At least I tried. Even if I get discouraged with how futile my efforts at pleasing Him seem to be, even when keeping Torah seems like a waste of time... "should we sin all the more so that grace may abound? Certainly not!" We may think that if we have salvation, it shouldn't matter if we keep the Torah or not... yet... if you were walking along the seashore and suddenly saw that jewels were coming in with the waves and lapping up against your feet... would the knowledge that you couldn't gather them all stop you from attempting to pick up as many as you could???? Mitzvot are jewels.... and though they alone can not save us from the destruction we deserve, why shouldn't we try to be perfect as He is perfect and holy as He is holy?
      Lastly I feel an overflow of gratitude to Hashem this time of year when I reflect upon how gracious He has been to us, in keeping us alive, sustaining us, and privileging us to reach this season. As stated above, we don't deserve that we should be living comfortably in this community, nor that we should be living peacefully as Jews in this world, nor even that we should exist. We do not deserve to be here. But we are..and when I realize this, I also realize how grateful I am. Gratitude is a combination of the above two emotions - regret of our mistakes and shortcomings, and satisfaction in our salvation through the Torah. As I come into Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of our new year, I'm not going to forget what I've done this past year - nor what He has done for me.
     To life! To fewer regrets the coming year! Shana Tova!
   

 

Proof 2 - Right of Conquest, Part One

     This is the first part of my senior thesis' second proof concerning the right of military conquest. Enjoy and leave your comments below, critical or otherwise!


          “In international law, the Right of Conquest is defined as ‘the purported right of a conqueror to territory which he has taken by force of arms.’ This theory is based on the proposition that a state which emerges victorious in war is entitled to claim ownership of the land of which it has taken possession during a war.” (Right of Conquest, Real Property, Real Properties Information) This Right of Conquest, however, was gradually modified after World War Two when aggression was made an official crime codified in the Nuremburg Principles and passed in 1974 as United Nations resolution 3314:  “The completion of colonial conquest of much of the world… the devastation of World Wars I and II, and the alignment of both the United States and the Soviet Union with the principle of self-determination led to the abandonment of the right of conquest in formal international law. The 1928 Kellog-Bridan Pact, the post-1945 Nuremburg  Trials, the UN charter, and the UN role in decolonization saw the progressive dismantling of this principle.” (Right of Conquest, Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia)

            However, in Joshua’s day, conquest was certainly a legal right in formal international law. (Some may argue that the right of conquest is also still legitimate today in spite of the United Nations, based on the assumption that the conquering force is more capable of securing peace and stability to the territory than the lawfully entitled governance of which it has taken over.) But whether or not a modern country currently has the right to invade and conquer territory is irrelevant, for when Joshua dispossessed the Canaan approximately three thousand years ago, he was entitled to do so by the authority of God and the authority of the sword; that is, the right of conquest. No American has ever suggested, during the short two hundred years or so that this country has existed, that we should return the United States to the Native American tribes, its original owners. So why should Israel return land (which they owned for seven hundred years until the Babylonian captivity) to ancient peoples such as the Canaanites and the Jebusites? Land in which they maintained a continuous presence until they were granted its legal rights in 1948? Every nation that has possessed Israel throughout history has won it by the sword, yet strangely, it is only when the Jews defeat aggressive Arab invaders and claim land historically their own that dissenting voices arise.

            The first step in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan was the destruction of Jericho. In the Torah, Joshua sent two spies from their encampment at Shittim across the Jordan into the city to explore, where they stayed with Rahab the harlot. After they returned to Joshua’s camp the Israelites set out to march around Jericho every day for six days.  On the seventh day, Hashem commanded them to march around the city seven times and conclude by blowing their shofars and giving a loud shout. As they did this, the walls of the great city miraculously disintegrated and the Israelites took Jericho. They went on to conquer Ai, accept the surrender of the Gibeonites, kill the king of Bethel, gain control of Shechem, (completing the conquest of northern Canaan,) and decisively defeat southern Canaan as well. The land was then partitioned according to Hashem’s commands, each tribe receiving their allotted portion of land.

            Thus Israel belonged to the Jews hundreds of years before ancient empires such as Rome and Greece even existed – through military strength they conquered Canaan’s inhabitants and maintained their presence in Israel until the Babylonian exile. After they returned from Babylon they also continued to live in the land until a portion of it became legally their own once more in 1948. In spite of being surrounded on all sides by hostile Arab nations who opposed their state status when the United Nations’ resolution was passed, they have remained a strong State of Israel for sixty-four years. 

Right of Merit?

This is an open-ended post, as I would like your input on this one, followers :)
I am wondering, is there such thing as meritorious right?
To elaborate.... We know that the Jews deserve to live in Israel, but do you think that one of the reasons is because they earned it? Because, under their care, the desert blossomed and sprouted economically? Do you think that is a good reason to deserve something?
The pro-Palestinians and "anti-Zionists" (a not-so-subtle euphemism for anti-Semites,) would argue that the Jews took their land, and it doesn't matter whether it prospered or not; it's still theirs. What would you have to say to this?
If you "took" someone's house (and this is not a very good analogy, because we know the Jews did not snatch Israel out of the Palesinians' hands,) and then planted a nice garden in front, fixed up the trimming and made it look nice, does that mean that you are now the rightful owner? I am not so sure about this one. I was intending to use it as the basis for my third proof of my thesis, but I am not sure if it is even a valid argument. I would really like to know what you think.
Please comment below, or even email me! I could use the help!!