Year: 2012

About my newborn daughter’s name – Dafna Betty Farber

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Ever since I can remember – possibly when I started watching Friends in high school, I wanted a daughter so I could name her Phoebe, and she’d be Phoebe Farber, except I’d spell it Feebee because it makes more sense and I don’t know why it’s spelled the other way, though it probably has something to do with Greece, which doesn’t even have our alphabet but I have a sneaking suspicion they have something to do with it, that bankrupt bottomless bailout pit.

Anyway, my wife vetoed the Feebee Farber option, even though my college roommate David found a New York Times article about a woman named Phoebe Farber. I have yet to meet her.

The runner up for names for me was always a twin set of girls named Zoe and Cloie, which would be awesome, but I don’t have twins yet, and I think my wife is going to veto that if it ever happens.

Then I got really into Futurama and started developing a crush on Leela, the purple-haired cyclops, and I really liked the character of Phillip J. Frye, who I have a lot in common with actually. So I wanted to name my kids Frye and Leela, which I could actually theoretically pull off with Hebrew equivalents if I ever needed to.

Then I started to realize I really wanted to name my kids after cartoon characters – but never ever Disney. Enter Dafna, a nice Hebrew name meaning bay leaf that I always liked, and I could call her Daffy and she’d be a cool girl.

As for Betty, that served the double purpose of being my Savta’s (grandmother’s) name, and being a cartoon character’s name. Savta’s given name was actually Pessy, which is Yiddish, and the Americans didn’t really know what do with that in the 20’s so they called her Betty.

We were thinking of Pessy possibilities – Pessy Flora Farber being the most prominent, Pessiflora being the Hebrew for passionfruit, but that was just way out there even for me. Then I figured that “Pessy” is a product of Jewish exile as Yiddish is just corrupted Hebrew, so I may as well preserve the Americanization of Savta’s name, Betty, so I did.

As for the person Dafna Betty is named for, Savta had one talent that made her stand out, something I only just realized when I started thinking more and more about it only yesterday.

The mitzvah she did best more than anyone I can think of was Hocheach Tochiach – the art of rebuking, but not in a condescending way or a belittling way, but actually in a way that made her pretty much universally respected in her community. She was the satellite that my entire extended family – consisting of something near 100 people (rough estimate) revolved around until she died in 2005.

One thing my father said at her funeral that everyone there pretty much agreed on was that they all cared more about Savta’s opinion than they did about their own mothers’ opinions.

I can’t explain how, but Savta always knew – seamlessly and effortlessly – exactly when and when not to insert herself in an argument, and if she was going to, exactly how to do it without threatening either side. And when she told you you were doing something wrong, she always did it without making you feel bad about yourself. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. I don’t know anyone else who even comes close to that kind of talent.

One short example, I was never good at calling her even though I knew she was alone much of the time. I had to be pushed and reminded constantly. And one time she told me, in almost a laugh-it-off tone, “Rafi, I love you even if you NEVER call me!” And somehow we both laughed even though I should have felt horrible and guilty.

One thing about the mitzvah of rebuking is that if you know how to do it correctly, it means you’ve got the rest of the stuff right as well. If you know when to rebuke, you know and care about right and wrong. If you know when not to, you know humility and human nature. If you know how to without making people feel bad or defensive, you respect others.

So if you can do that, you’ve got pretty much the whole thing. That’s what I wish for my new daughter, Dafna Betty Farber, who I hope will have Savta Betty Farber’s talents in this area of life, something I still lack.

What thermodynamics can teach us about economics – money is NOT wealth

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , ,

One of the basic assumptions of Keynesian economics is that government can plop money into the system when the system is slowing down. The new money starts flowing around and things get revitalized. The new money is either borrowed from someone else, say China, or it is stolen from the population of the US itself by printing it and slicing off a piece of everyone’s wealth by diluting the dollar.

Let’s just assume for now that the money is borrowed instead of printed. OK, so the US government borrows money from someone else by selling a bond and then using that money to “jumpstart” the economy. They “jumpstart” it by sticking that money somewhere and hoping that whoever they give it to uses it to make more money. Eventually, the money that they borrowed has to be repaid.

The moral hazard here is that the government feels that it can just print the money when the bill comes due. Technically, they can. And that’s the problem.

Here’s the problem restated: Let’s say a group of people get together to invest in a start up. They risk their wealth to pour into a business that is going to produce…I don’t know…hoverboards. If they successfully produce one, then they’ll get a return on their wealth and end up with even more wealth. Because this group of investors knows very well that if they fail, they can’t just “print” the money to pay their debts. They have to succeed or they go bankrupt. They lose their wealth, and that’s it. That’s why they try really hard to succeed.

They are taking their wealth, which they worked for, and sticking it into hoverboards, and risking it. If they win, the economy grows and more wealth is added to the economy. If they don’t, that welath is lost in consumption that didn’t produce any wealth in the end.

But if the GOVERNMENT gives out a loan for hoverboards and the people they gave it to are lazy asses and they use it to buy jaguar-skinned comforters filled with platinum dust instead of figuring out how to produce hoverboards and the government doesn’t really care because if they lose the money, they can just PRINT it, then the chances that the money loaned will produce NOTHING, skyrockets.

So when the government moves to stimulate the economy with someone else’s wealth, they are ideally trying to get people to produce things with that wealth so in the end there is more wealth so they can theoretically pay back the people they borrowed money from. But if they can’t, they just print up money and steal wealth from you and ship it to China thereby taking even more wealth out of the economy and draining the whole system. Or even more ludicrously, they can print it up to pay an American citizen back, thereby stealing from him and paying him back at the same time.

So where do thermodynamics come in? The first law of thermodynamics states that the amount of matter and energy in the universe is constant. The second law of thermodynamics states that the universe tends towards chaos inexorably. The only reason things can get organized here on planet Earth is that we have a constant source of energy pouring in here, which is the sun. But we have to do work in order to organize things here. The economic equivalents of those laws, as close as I can parallel them, would be these:

Matter and energy in thermodynamics equals money in economic terms. Organization in thermodynamics equals wealth. So the economic equivalents of the first two laws of thermodynamics are

  1. The amount of money in the economy is always constant
  2. The economy always tends towards chaos, unless we use money to organize things, thereby producing “wealth”.
So, whereas the amount of money in the world is constant, the amount of wealth in the world is always changing. If money is used to produce things (organize things, create hoverboards), wealth increases. If money is used to consume things (eat, party, purchase jaguar skinned comforters stuffed with platinum dust) wealth decreases. But money always stays constant. Money is only a means with which one can either produce or consume wealth. Just as matter and energy is only a means with which one can either create or destroy.


The Keynesian approach contradicts these laws by equating money with wealth. It says that the amount of money that exists in the world varies at any given time by government decree. It also assumes that the economy tends towards wealth instead of chaos, because it doesn’t matter where the money goes as long as it’s flowing according to Keynes. For Keynes, the very act of money moving through the system means that wealth is being increased. Yeah, and I have a voodoo doll at home that works just great.

So what you’ll have in the end is a big ball of flaming economic entropy with a whole bunch of money but no wealth anywhere. Welcome to the Keynesian Debt Bubble. Welcome to the 21st century.

 

Fiat Money or a gold standard – either way it’s backed by work

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

Thinking about paper currency lately, money backed by nothing so to speak. This is in contrast to money backed by gold. Meaning, first people passed around gold or silver, then they got tired of carrying it so they started passing around paper that could be redeemed for a certain amount of gold or silver.

It hit me today. There really isn’t such a thing as money backed by gold either. Gold only represents something. That something is called work. Gold doesn’t and cannot create prosperity in itself. All it can do is sit somewhere and look shiny. Gold only represents the prosperity achieved by people who do work.

Gold represents work better than paper because no self respecting person will give you his gold without you giving something for it in return that he wants. So when you are paid in money that is backed by gold, that gold is definitely backed by work done by somebody somewhere.

Can paper represent prosperity? Sure it can, in theory. But just like gold, it only represents prosperity that already exists.  One dollar not redeemable for gold can theoretically represent the same amount of work that a dollar redeemable for gold can represent. But the problem is, one dollar not redeemable for anything can be printed really really easily. And when someone, say the fed, puts another dollar into circulation, that dollar still represents something.

It represents work that someone else did. There’s no other way to see it. When the Federal Reserve puts money into circulation at the push of a button, and people take that money and use it, that money is work stolen from someone else by the government.

So what is “stimulus”? What is government “spending”? Stimulus is when the government collects all the work done by the population of the United States, steals a part of that work, and uses whatever it stole to give it to a sector they like or deem important.

What is government “spending”? Well, it should be what a population gives to a government by social contract in order to protect the individuals of that population from other individuals who would try to hurt them. This should NOT cost all that much money, and therefore shouldn’t take much of the population’s work. But in the US, government spending is treated as if it creates prosperity instead of represents prosperity that already exists. So governmnet spending under Obama and Keynes is when the government decides it knows exactly where your work should be invested, and does it for you against your will by pushing the print button.

Screw that. This is insane.

A short lesson on the Gold Standard from the Bible

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , ,

I’m planning a class on this for Jews for Ron Paul, but here are some initial thoughts on the subject.

Genesis 2:12 always took me for a loop, until I was introduced to Austrian economic theory and the gold standard. After God creates man in the second creation story (yes, there are two), the Bible goes off on a tangent about where the Garden of Eden is located. It maps the rivers that feed the garden, and then talks about the lands the rivers pass, and in case we cared at all, it says that the gold in one of these lands that the river that happens to flow into Eden flows past, is good.

Well OK, the gold in some land that has nothing to do with the man on the moon is good. So what?

Come on! It’s the Garden of Eden for the love of God! There’s no work, no toil, but you have to tell me about some gold and that it’s of good quality before God even puts Adam in the Garden of Eden?

The message, which I finally understand: There is no such thing as a fiat paradise. Back it up with gold.

Why most Ron Paul supporters are wrong about Iran, and why I don’t care

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , ,

I visit Lewrockwell.com several times a week. I read the economic articles and some of the Ron Paul updates there. The site published one of my articles here that was read by about 100,000 people so I appreciate it, and he and his staff of course do great work, especially with founding the Mises institute in the 80’s.

The problem though with diehard Ron Paul people like Lew is that they have blindspots. Just like Zionist Jews and those who are freaked out by Jihad have blindspots regarding Paul’s foreign policy and cannot possibly entertain the notion that maybe 9/11 was actually partly America’s own fault, Paulians like Rockwell cannot possibly entertain the notion that maybe Iran actually does want to annihilate Israel.

If I had just stumbled onto Lewrockwell.com without being lured into the whole Paul universe and community first with his economic, libertarian message, I would have ran out of that website screaming and calling the ADL. Every day there is another article about how peaceful Iran is and how they would never hurt a fly and whoever believes otherwise is buying propaganda. Read that without understanding the message of liberty and you’re a Jew with the cultural history of Persians trying to annihilate you in the past (read the Book of Esther), you would be instantly repulsed. But when I read it, it only annoys me mildly. Less and less every day.

Two days ago I was listening to the Lew Rockwell show, one of his podcasts, and he was interviewing Bob Wenzel. Lew said something like “We don’t want Iran or Israel to attack each other, but of course Israel is the one that’s threatening and Iran is just being peaceful.”

That turned up the dial of annoyingness from mildly to moderately, and I am a Jewish ultra nationalist. Other Jews would have been horrified by that comment. Why can I stomach these and keep admiring Rockwell when I have what we would call a “nuclear disagreement”?

It has to do with liberty and independence. When people are independent and free, then other people don’t resent them for their problems. While Lew is obviously wrong about Iran being peaceful and he chooses to ignore statement after statement to the absolute contrary (most recently Khamenei saying that Iran must attack Israel by 2014 and killing Jews is a Muslim religious duty) much like an Obama socialist ignores economic reality, he is blind about this not because he hates Jews, but he hates fighting other people’s wars. He just doesn’t want anything to do with it, and Israel has much more influence in America than Iran does, so he blames Israel.

Essentially, if we are to reword what Lew is saying when he says that Iran is peaceful and Israel is the aggressor, we can say that when it comes to America being involved in the whole Iran Israel fight, Israel is much more responsible for bringing America directly into the picture than Iran is. This is what he hates, and because Israel is dragging America into the Iranian mess, he pins Israel as the aggressor. In that way, he’s right.

The reason his statements don’t bother me all that much are that even though he’s wrong, I know full well that he doesn’t hate or love Israel. He really just doesn’t care and doesn’t want anything to do with it or my problems. And I don’t WANT him to care or have anything to do with it either, so Lew and I basically agree. I want to be independent, I don’t want any charity, and I want to take care of my own problems in Israel.

If everyone took care of their own issues, then there’d be a lot less calls to the ADL and the malinvestment that goes into keeping them running will be redirected to something that actually matters instead of something that just makes people resentful of Jews whining about Anti Semitism all the time.

And if you want to make the claim that Iran is the world’s problem and not the Jews’ problem, I’d say, again, stop trying to bring the world into Jewish issues. It really makes them resent us, and if Lew doesn’t hate Jews now, he really WILL if this drags America into yet another war that will destroy his country.

Man up, be a Jew, let’s take out the trash and get some respect. I didn’t get my independence back after 2,000 years to freak out and cry to the world about some Persians trying to kill me. I got my independence back after 2,000 years so I can take care of them myself.

Tom Woods on 26 Things Non Ron Paul Supporters Appear to be Saying

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

I couldn’t resist this one. It’s awesome. From Tom Woods blog.

(1) The American political establishment has done a super job keeping our country prosperous and our liberties protected, so I’m sure whatever candidate they push on me is probably a good one.

(2) Our country is basically bankrupt. Unfunded entitlement liabilities are in excess of twice world GDP. Therefore, it’s a good idea to vote for someone who offers no specific spending cuts of any kind.

(3) Vague promises to cut spending are good enough for me, even though they have always resulted in higher spending in the past.

(4) I prefer a candidate who plays to the crowd, instead of having the courage to tell his audience things they may not want to hear.

(5) I am deeply concerned about spending. Therefore, I would like to vote for someone who supported Medicare Part D, thereby adding $7 trillion to Medicare’s unfunded liabilities.

(6) I am opposed to bailouts. Therefore, I will vote for a candidate who supported TARP.

(7) The federal government is much too involved in education, where it has no constitutional role. Therefore, I will vote for a candidate who supported expanding the Department of Education and favored the No Child Left Behind Act.

(8) Even though practically everyone was caught by surprise in the 2008 financial crisis, which we are still reeling from, it’s a good idea not to vote for the one man in politics who predicted exactly what was bound to unfold, all the way back in 2001.

(9) I am not impressed by a candidate who inspires people, especially young ones, to read the great economists and political philosophers.

(10) I am concerned about taxes. Therefore, I will not vote for the one candidate who has never supported a tax increase.

(11) I believe it is conservative to support bringing the Enlightenment to Afghanistan.

(12) Even though I lost half my retirement portfolio when the economy crashed from the sugar high the Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates put it on, I would like to vote for someone who is not really interested in the Federal Reserve.

(13) Even though 50 years of the embargo on Cuba did nothing to undermine Fidel Castro, and in fact handed him a perfect excuse for all the failures of socialism, I favor continuing this policy.

(14) If someone has a drug problem, prison rape is the best solution I can think of.

(15) Even though the Constitution had to be amended to allow for alcohol prohibition, and even though I claim to care about the Constitution, I don’t mind that there’s no constitutional authorization for the war on drugs, and I will punish at the polls anyone who favors the constitutional solution of returning the issue to the states.

(16) I believe only a “liberal” would think it was inhumane to keep essential items out of Iraq in the 1990s, even though one of the first people to protest this policy was Pat Buchanan.

(17) The Brookings Institution says Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America was an insignificant nibbling around the edges. I favor people who support insignificant nibbling around the edges, as long as they occasionally trick me with a nice speech.

(18) I am deeply concerned about radical Islam, so it was a good idea to depose the secular Saddam Hussein — who was so despised by Islamists that Osama bin Laden himself offered to fight against him in the 1991 Persian Gulf War — and replace him with a Shiite regime friendly with Iran, while also bringing about a new Iraqi constitution that makes Islam the state religion and forbids any law that contradicts its teachings.

(19) Indefinite detention for U.S. citizens seems like nothing to be worried about, especially since our political class is so trustworthy that it could never abuse such a power.

(20) Following up on (19), I believe Thomas Jefferson was just being paranoid when he said, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

(21) Even though the war in Iraq was based on crude propaganda I would have laughed at if the Soviet Union had peddled it, and even though the result has been hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, four million people displaced, trillions of dollars down the drain, tens of thousands of serious injuries among American servicemen and an epidemic of suicide throughout the military, not to mention the ruination of America’s reputation in the world, I see no reason to be skeptical when the same people who peddled that fiasco urge me to support yet another war as my country is going bankrupt.

(22) I do not trust the media. But when the media tells me I am not to support Ron Paul, who says things he is not allowed to say, I will comply.

(23) I know the media will smear or marginalize anyone who would really fix this country. But when the media smears and marginalizes Ron Paul, I will draw no conclusion from this.

(24) I want to be spoken to like this: “My fellow Americans, you are the awesomest of the awesome, and the only reason anyone in the world might be unhappy with your government is because of your sheer awesomeness.”

(25) I think it’s a good idea to vote for Mitt Romney, whose top three donors are Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley, and a bad idea to vote for Ron Paul, whose top three donors are the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force.

(26) I have not been exploited enough by the cozy relationship between large financial firms and the U.S. government, and I would like to see it continue.

Answer to some Feiglin related questions

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog

There’s a group floating around on facebook that’s trying to sign people up to Likud who are scared of Moshe Feiglin, alright, so I tried talking to them. They’re really afraid of him for some reason. I doubt they’ve ever read any of his books or articles and are basing their fear on Yediot Aharonot and Channel 2. Some people just don’t like looking past their TV sets.

Here’s a translation to English of what I told them. One of them asked me the following:

Rafi, I suggest that instead of telling us we don’t disagree on anything, get to the point of the matter. Do you think there should be a separation of religion and state? Do you believe we need to change the system of government? Do you think that it’s more important to worry about working citizens than it is about outposts and yeshivas? Let’s hear. Maybe you’ll show us that Feiglin is the new Likudnik and we just didn’t know it.

Here’s my answer.

Do I think there needs to be a separation of religion and state? Yes, in every private matter. The Feiglinites, and Feiglin himself, favors the maximum amount of personal freedom possible. For example, we are against any forced involvement of the Rabanut in private life, including marriage, divorce, keeping Shabbat, and we favor that every Jew decide for himself what he wants to observe and what he doesn’t. With regard to public matters, meaning the parts of Judaism that are directed to the public and not to the individual – like the justice system and how it should be designed, tort law, theft and burglary, interest laws and monetary policy, these need to be according to the spirit of Judaism. We the Jews are not a religion. We are a nation.

We need to take a look into our past  and build a true Jewish state that is based on absolute freedom for the individual, Jewish tradition, a Jewish justice system and the like.

We certainly need to change the system of government. 100%. Local representation for the Knesset that will allow local communities to form. Every city should decide what it wants to tax and what not to and how much, so that people can decide where to live, whether they want to pay more taxes and get more benefits, or pay less taxes and get less benefits. The freedom to choose! The Knesset needs to be responsible only for national issues like the army, defense, and courts. More power for the local governments, much less for the knesset, and every city should have its knesset representatives elected by that city.

Regarding the outpost question, the question itself is rigged (and might I add reveals a fair level of hatred – that I didn’t write to him). Feiglin favors human rights for everyone. EVERYONE. Including the leftist who doesn’t want to serve in the “West Bank” (Judea and Samaria), all the way to the settler who wants to live on some hilltop anywhere in the land of Israel. We Feiglinites don’t see the People of Israel as different groups. If you forgo the rights of a settler, in that he is a human being, you will eventually forgo the rights of every citizen of this country. We are all individuals. To see one group as better than another is wrong.

Regarding Yeshivas, it is not the government’s responsibility to fund any Yeshiva at all. Learning Torah is a private matter and should be funded privately. Freedom for all!

God is the Real Observer at the Polls

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog ,

As expected, massive election fraud. It’s OK, we’re doing what we can to deal with it. In the end, we must all realize that these elections are just a game. A very important game we all have an obligation to play, but a game nonetheless. They are a game to get the Nation of Israel to pay attention, to see for a fraction of a second what’s really going on. This past week they got another opportunity to glimpse at the Jewish alternative.

We do everything we can, trust that we are on the right path, fight with poise, calm, and faith, and in the end we win. This was originally posted on Israel Truth Times.

Everyone reading this who has an Israeli ID card, click here and join Likud right this very second. Be a player in this game. Before the sea splits, you must take the leap, pay the 64 shekels, and put your name in the hat. Or you can just sit and complain from the sidelines about how muddy the trail is.

When you’re engaged in a battle to change the very consciousness of the State of Israel, the hardest thing to do is stay calm while at the same time fighting harder than you can imagine. We came into this election knowing that the deck was stacked against us, as it has been since we positioned ourselves as the faith-based alternative to Israel’s current leadership. Jewish Leadership – the name means that our goal is nothing less than replacing the powers that be in their entirety. So a little voting fraud, even a lot of it, doesn’t surprise us one bit. In fact, had this election been squeaky clean, we’d feel a bit uncomfortable…

Initial reports of the count given to us by sources high up in the Likud reported that Moshe Feiglin got 36% of the Likud vote, with Netanyahu getting 63%. The story came out at around 1am, February 1. Had that story stuck then Netanyahu would most likely be on his way out of the Likud right now. Just like, had Feiglin kept his number 19 slot on the Likud Knesset roster in ’08, Netanyahu would have left the party long ago. Imagine how embarrassing it would be for him if Feiglin were on his knesset list and no matter what he did, no matter how many threats he made, no matter how much iron coalition discipline he threw at Feiglin to vote the way he demanded and, say, kill a bill that would legalize Migron, Feiglin would never, ever break.

There’s no one in the Knesset like that. Not one. Some are better than others, but no one dares disobey Netanyahu from within, openly, and challenge his leadership at every opportunity. Feiglin would have, every time, from inside the Knesset, from inside Netanyahu’s own party, and he’d get censured and “disciplined” and banned from giving speeches on the plenum and maybe even banned from Likud faction meetings, but he’d vote his conscience and stand out like a sore thumb every time without exception. And the People of Israel would have paid very, very close attention. And the fear and mythology that surrounds the mystical elusive Netanyahu would have evaporated in days

That’s why Netanyahu did everything he could to get Feiglin off his list back then, kosher or not. And that’s why Netanyahu did everything he could to keep Feiglin at his previous 23% ceiling this time, kosher or not, even though he actually got 36%.

So over 1,000 people voted in Bet She’an, a Netanyahu stronghold, when there are only 700 Likud members there. Fraud. So they kicked our observers out of a bunch of places before the count started. Fraud. So in Beit Shemesh, Feiglin got hundreds more votes than reported according to our observers. Tens more examples like this. We’ll fight it. We’ll fight it as hard as we can. Maybe we’ll win, maybe we’ll lose, but in the end what we all must know that God is the real observer at the polls, and He knows what He’s doing.

That, and Netanyahu and the powers that be can only fight reality for so long. The reality is, Israel will have Jewish leadership. And every time Feiglin has another shot, more Jewish souls are lit. And once lit, they never go out. At a certain point, the dam will break. There’s nothing he or anyone else can do about it, because once the soul of this nation turns towards real Jewish leadership, no amount of fraud will be able to stop it.

So Bibi and the rest, I and those in this country who are awake and ready for the next round, say to you this: Bring it on. We’ll be there, and your time is running out.

If you reading this want to be part of the next fight, I urge you to join Likud right this second. Right on Netanyahu’s website, by clicking here.

I’m not a Feiglin Fanatic – I’m a Jewish People Fanatic

rafifarber The Jewish Libertarian Blog , , , ,

With about 36 hours until polls open for Netanyahu vs Feiglin Round IV, I find myself fending off attacks from those who essentially agree with Feiglin about everything, but don’t support him because they think he’ll destroy the Likud if elected. It’s not that these people don’t believe in Feiglin. They don’t believe in the Jewish Nation’s ability to redeem itself.

They tell me that only a Feiglin fanatic could possibly believe that the Likud would gain seats if headed by Feiglin. These types of people have their political beliefs which I may agree with, but they have no faith in the Jewish People. I believe in the Jewish People because I know and understand Jewish history. Feiglin is just a guy like everyone else.  Nothing really that special about him, except he’s doing the work everyone else shied away from. It’s the Jewish People that are special.

I also know and understand our role in our own history and what that role should be. When this People is finally presented a real leadership that can take its potential and broadcast it to the world, we will all wake up. If you have a strictly religious personality and Judaism is a personal religion to you and nothing more, you will not support Feiglin, no matter how much you agree with him. You will think that what he represents is pure fantasy, and you will refuse to vote for him under any circumstances. You will ignore poll numbers that say if he wins Likud will gain strength.

Chazal say that the first question one is asked after death is, “Were you honest with money?” That I can understand. It’s very hard to be honest with money. But the third question is “Did you believe in redemption?”

Why should that be the third question? Who doesn’t believe in redemption? Why is it so hard to believe that the Jews will be redeemed?

It’s not hard to say you believe it. It’s really hard to act accordingly. You only believe something if you are willing and ready to act on that belief. If you believe in the concept of Jewish redemption, you believe in Feiglin’s candidacy. You don’t know how he will win in the end, but you do know one thing with spiritual certainty, and that is this: When the Jewish People are presented the choice, for REAL, they will choose the path of redemption. They will choose Feiglin’s path.

This election on Tuesday is just one more step in that direction. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know how much Feiglin will get, and I don’t know all the things Netanyahu has up his sleeve and how much he will cheat.

But I know we are doing the right thing and that this is inevitable. Israel will have Jewish leadership. So if you don’t support Feiglin but you agree with him, I ask you this question, and I’m quoting that guy who shot Sean Connery in Indiana Jones III and looked at Harrison Ford and said this:

It’s time you ask yourself WHAT YOU BELIEVE.

May God give us all the help we need and the strength to continue and fight this to the very end.

Good luck everyone!