Or maybe he’s their scapegoat? Who says they would have made different decisions if someone else were in his place?

With God’s help, 5 Tishrei 5781

Netanyahu deserves credit for the way he sprang into action at the beginning of the coronavirus period. When many still did not see the great danger, he acted energetically and decisively and recognized the intensity of the threat.

Anyone who has to make decisions must take into account, on the one hand, the need not to destroy the economy, and on the other hand, the fear that an uncareful reopening of the economy and the education system will increase the spread of the disease. And since nobody—including the great “experts”—has clear knowledge of the ways of the “coronavirus,” there is no choice but to walk “on a tightrope.”

At the moment the situation is that although most of the economy is open and functioning, the rates of severe harm are very low. If we take together the cumulative number of seriously ill patients and deaths over more than half a year, we are talking about something on the order of 0.02 percent of the total population (without taking into account that a considerable part of that number had severe underlying illnesses, so it is unclear to what extent the “coronavirus” is the cause of their condition).

That does not mean we should be complacent. On the contrary, it would seem that precisely because we were not complacent and took strict precautionary measures, we reached this state of very limited harm. And in my humble opinion we should continue with the approach of opening the economy and normal life while carefully observing the required protective measures: masks, distance between people, hand cleanliness, and avoiding dense gatherings.

Best regards, Sh.Tz.

If it were proven that in other countries around the world there was clear success, and specifically here in our little country—where the person at the top is in a severe conflict of interest—the situation had spun out of control, then there would be room to blame Mr. Bibi for leadership failure and a grave conflict of interest. But as I recall, the most serious damage caused here in the state during this miserable period is the anarchy that reigns, where everyone does whatever is right in his own eyes—and all with massive support from the media. Every lawbreaker becomes a hero, while they offer a wide variety of solutions and tips on how to outsmart the system. For this almost irreversible damage, a whole array of radical left-wing organizations, murky with hatred for Bibi even at the cost of burning down the whole house with everyone in it, are responsible—chief among them Avichai Mandelblit, a man with one of the worst conflicts of interest humanity has ever known. It is recommended to follow “Adam Gold” on Telegram and Twitter; he brings evidence and sources for everything said here. Seeing is believing. I’ll quote his latest words, spoken in pain ahead of the terrible lockdown standing at our door; every word is true:
"So according to what is being reported now, an entire country is hermetically shutting down the economy—at the cost of tens of billions of shekels that all our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will pay for their entire lives—just because a bureaucrat full of hubris who runs the country, followed by a few reckless politicians, decided that from a ‘legal’ point of view it is impossible to restrict dense demonstrations without shutting down the whole economy.
We’ve gone completely insane. There is no limit to the recklessness."

To Tam — greetings,

An explicit Talmudic text proves that there is no “coronavirus” at anarchist protests. After all, it is explained in the Talmud that brazenness is “a kingship without a crown” — a kingdom without a crown (corona, in the vernacular).

Likewise, the right of jurists to do whatever they please is explicit in the Talmud: “let him wear black and wrap himself in black… and do what his heart desires.”

Can we really argue with explicit Talmudic texts? 🙂

Best regards, Shin Tzin Lin

Line 1
… that there is no “coronavirus” at anarchist protests…

Some say the purpose of coronavirus is not health-related at all, but economic.
And Bibi succeeded in destroying the economy of the State of Israel just as he was instructed to do.

From the very first day he made sure the coronavirus would spread in the country, and after it had spread he suddenly started scaring everyone. But only after it had already spread. Exactly the way the World Health Organization behaved in relation to coronavirus.

Bibi does not care about Jews. He was a good soldier. And as such, he obeys orders coolly and resolutely.

They didn’t just put him there to be prime minister.

And not only that—satanic Bibi also caused the deaths of some 200,000 people in the U.S. and millions of people all over the world, especially in Italy, Spain, and Brazil. They’re always screwing the Sephardim…

Best regards, Z.Tz. [Elders of Zion]

1. The leadership is utterly incompetent, making hysteria and not history, and busy with politics and tricks. There is no judgment and no long-term thinking, only an orientation toward prime time on television.

2. Society is fractured, busy with accusations and racism. People are fighting with each other over whether there is contagion at demonstrations, whether the Haredim are disease spreaders or not. Society is not dealing maturely with the problem itself, but looking for someone to blame and trying to dump the problems on the other sector.

3. On the personal level, the behavior is appalling. Compared to other countries, people don’t have a drop of solidarity. The average Israeli is constantly busy scheming and fixing things under the table. People don’t obey instructions; according to the data, 41% of those obligated to quarantine violated it. People don’t obey lockdowns, constantly whine about the economic damage, and try to squeeze as much money as possible out of the state.

It may be that failure at one level affects failure at the second level, but in summary, at every level, the way this is being handled is a disgrace.

Beyond the fact that the whole world will have to lick its wounds for a long time, especially economically, and set up commissions of inquiry about the decisions that were made, I think Israel as a state and as a nation will need to reflect on its mental handling of the crisis period.

Aharon, actually after yesterday’s poll data about who is to blame for the growing infection rate, Amit Segal wrote: “The public is more mature than its leaders: a large majority supports closing synagogues and restricting the Balfour protests, including a majority for both measures on the right and the left. And a surprise: a majority of the public thinks it is more to blame than the government for our grim situation. At last, national responsibility?”

Be that as it may, even according to your correct approach, Aharon, the guilty party is Israeli make-do culture—among the Haredim, the secular, and the Arabs alike. The ones who apparently fall between the cracks are the Hardal people and the Lithuanian-style Haredim.
How is Bibi connected to all this?!
When he started with restrictions in the first round, everyone shouted that he was busy with hysteria, etc. etc. Today, when in retrospect it turns out the man correctly foresaw the consequences, he is blamed for failure. In short, whatever result would have come out, he would have been blamed. If there had been no second wave, the accusations would have been that the first lockdown was unnecessary and he destroyed the economy and sent us all into panic.

Bottom line: there is no magic solution. The event unfolds and decisions are made on the move; that necessarily causes failures. If the public had been fully disciplined, we would probably be past it already. It is understandable that after the matter of demonstrations became holy of holies, to the point of “be killed rather than transgress,” every person decides for himself what his own holy of holies is. The main anarchy comes as a direct result of the demonstrations, even if there wasn’t a single infected person there. The message being conveyed is that everyone does whatever is right in his own eyes. If you, Aharon, or anyone else had been prime minister, the situation probably would not have looked different. The state here is diverse, and you can never come out on top with everyone. It’s not like Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Australia—there everyone is in more or less the same square.

Rabbi Michi, you didn’t tell us anything.

So every time the prosecution decides to bring down a sitting prime minister because it is leftist, then he will have to go because of that? Wonderful—we’ve found a way yet again to ignore the choice of the majority of the people (the Jewish people, let’s not get confused; with you I don’t know). Actually, according to what you’re saying, the main one to blame is the prosecution.

And you could have thought of that on your own. It’s not that hard. And Kalman Liebskind is just some journalist currying favor with his colleagues. And maybe you too are currying favor with your colleagues at Bar-Ilan, who themselves curry favor with colleagues from the other universities. Bar-Ilan University is known for its low spirits and inferiority complex (true to the best tradition of Religious Zionism, whether the Hardal kind that curries favor with the Haredim or the liberal kind that curries favor with the secular).

Once again we see your mental blindness, Rabbi Michi. “I told you so…” Sure. Why not.

I wonder what will happen when they start digging up and inventing all kinds of things about Bennett from under the floorboards. We have enough laws and enough creativity from the judges and jurists for them to decide who is supposed to be the leader.

Before you go checking into all the unjustified inferiority feelings that everyone else supposedly has, go out and check the justified inferiority feelings that you ought to feel and for some reason don’t.

What is true, though, is that all these discussions about government failure are simply part of the culture of not taking responsibility for our fate (the heritage of the Israeli and global left. For them the people are never to blame, only the regime. No wonder they love anarchism). And no wonder the media loves talking about it so much. But that isn’t Zionism (and not capitalism either). The whole essence of Zionism is to stop blaming others (even if they really are guilty), and to stop playing the victim and behaving like children. If the public took responsibility and stopped looking at the government, the situation would be excellent. People simply need to grow up.

And with that you blamed “the public” and “the left.” Rabbi Kook’s most worn-out sentence is “the pure righteous do not complain about wickedness, etc.,” and it’s interesting to note that every time I’ve seen it quoted, it was quoted as a complaint against those who complained and did not add purity (“What are you whining about? The pure righteous do not complain…”). Just like the sentence “one does not converse during the meal” is always said during the meal itself, and nobody remembers who said the maxim that whoever quotes something in the name of the one who said it brings redemption to the world. Even before Zionism, the Jews did not play victim (rather, they were victimized, and that is a big difference). The public overall behaves in a normal human way, and acts according to incentives and awareness. To blame “the public” and hope that by some miracle it will change is a bit like blaming the thieves for theft instead of the police and the locks.

To Cursed Is He Who Strikes — greetings,

You can’t station a policeman in every single place and on every single person, and you can’t punish thousands upon tens of thousands of people. There has to be a public atmosphere of caution and careful observance of the rules. In order to create a public atmosphere, one has to explain and raise awareness, and then, when the rule-breakers are only a few individuals, enforcement measures can be used against them.

The problem is that even among the experts there are polar disagreements about how to cope with the situation, and when the experts do not reach agreement, it is all the more difficult to reach a broad public consensus. In every place and every sector, one has to find the more talented explainers who will know how to convey the message to their unique public.

In short: when there is good public explanation, you don’t need police!

Best regards, Sh.Tz.

To Cursed (what a name you chose too. Once it gets shortened, that’s what comes out),

You are very mistaken. There is an enormous difference between the examples you brought and mine. I was fully aware of what you wrote when I wrote my words. But you are very mistaken. First of all, I did not blame a person. There is a difference between blame and responsibility. And when people choose evil, that has consequences. This is not a complaint about evil. It’s what the prophets did. Part of taking responsibility for yourself is also not taking on yourself the responsibility of others. The only thing one can do is make it clear to them themselves that the responsibility resting on them is theirs. And I am definitely fighting against the leftist culture of the people not taking responsibility and throwing all responsibility on the government. The media has a considerable part in spreading that culture.

And the responsibility I’m talking about is to wear a mask, keep 2 meters apart, wash hands, follow all the guidelines, and be a bit stricter than the guidelines allow when common sense says so. I observe all these things almost zealously From understanding that this is a national mission and only it will defeat the coronavirus, and whoever does not behave like I do is spreading the virus of contempt. When people do not do this, I comment whenever I can, and once someone even threatened me. No government, no enforcement, and no fines will help in such a case. How will the police enforce things when they themselves are contemptuous of the guidelines? Half the country can’t be police officers (and if they are contemptuous too, that still won’t help). If the people take responsibility, the government will come to its senses on its own. All day long it is under pressure from what the public will say about it, and that causes paralysis. Everyone is afraid of what his voters will do to him. So maybe the voters should calm down. Netanyahu did say something along these lines and he was immediately accused of shirking responsibility. But he is right, and I would say it much more loudly. In fact, the very fact that he spoke quietly was a bad decision on his part (there—you see? I also think he is wrong, and it was his responsibility to make it clear loudly that the public too has responsibility). That is the whole meaning of a liberal party—people take responsibility for themselves. And that is what he himself believes in the end, but he is afraid to say it because of media criticism. In your view, if I wear a mask, am I not allowed to complain that they are not wearing a mask?

By the way, I am really horrified when I see that people do not understand these things (about responsibility) on their own. And that Rabbi Michi joins this choir too (he is really influenced by what people think—much more than I thought he was). How do you not understand this by yourself?

To Cursed,

And forgive me for the banality. Truly, the main responsibility for theft is on the thieves, as long as they are human beings. And also the blame. Truly, when I blame someone for theft, first and foremost it is the thief. I still can’t believe you wrote that. The fact that you do not understand that this is so just shows exactly how far this leftist brainwashing has gone.

Honestly, I’m still in shock that you compared blaming the public to blaming thieves for theft, and did so From the assumption that it is self-evident that the main blame for theft lies with the police and the locks.

What you said—that the Jews were victimized—is exactly the victim mentality I’m talking about. Someone who does not play the victim does not think of himself as a victim. And indeed the non-Zionist Jewish mentality is the greatest victim mentality in the world. No wonder Bernie Sanders and Ruth Ginsburg are Jews. They have no loyalty to any people. They think only about themselves and how to get by. A classic Jew. And no wonder people couldn’t stand the Jews, who were always busy scheming with the authorities (and still do so here in this country too—not necessarily the Haredim, who really are still in exile—out of an instinct that has not left us: “It is easier to take the Jew out of exile than to take exile out of the Jew”).

To Immanuel — greetings,

In my humble opinion, even regarding a person who gives himself a negative nickname, it is not proper for us to use toward him a nickname that has a negative meaning. Better, in my humble opinion, to address him by the nickname “Blessed is he who does not strike,” and in short: B.A.L.I. 🙂

Best regards, Bai’a’adeha

To Sh.Tz. (for some reason you also keep switching nicknames),

He really didn’t call himself that. He came to curse me and ended up cursing himself, in keeping with the verse, “Like a wandering sparrow… so an undeserved curse shall come upon him.”

Instead of assuming I didn’t think of something on my own, try first to think about what you’re missing, because (a) you’ll merit understanding, (b) it will save you writing, and (c) it will save me weariness and astonishment at your deficient understanding.
The basic way a public of millions behaves is a given for me, and actual behavior is influenced by incentives: (1) enforcement, (2) explanation about the importance of the specific step, and persuasion that the step is effective and worthwhile, (3) and From awareness of the emotions of fools, there also needs to be fairness.
To kvetch that “the public is responsible” without there being anything concrete to do with that—this is exactly the opposite of responsibility. The public needs to be careful to wear masks in meetings and enclosed spaces, and whoever is in quarantine needs to remain in complete quarantine. Who disagrees with that, and what are you adding?
Even if the public is guilty, negligent, and childish, and even if it is like thieves, it is still not effective to address only them; rather, one should address the police as well.
Among other things, it is the government’s job to cause the given public (which is overall normal, reasonable, and sloppy) to behave responsibly. And that is done with the incentives above. A successful government would have managed to discipline even a public inclined toward negligence.
For example, even if the messianic age comes and the public on its own understands everything and does everything carefully and cautiously, there would still be a need for a public mechanism of investigating chains of infection and all the other claims that people are making.

I don’t understand what you want with this victimhood point. The Jews in exile suffered abuse, expulsions, inquisitions, legal restrictions, riots, pogroms, and the Holocaust. Which of these has anything to do with victim-playing? And to whom exactly did the Jews turn in order to present themselves as victims to extort favors? Bring a few historical examples so that I/we can begin to understand what you mean. I don’t have the energy to go over and correct the rest of the statements you drifted into, etc.

By “Cursed Is He Who Strikes” I simply meant to allude, in the language of the verse, that I am anonymous and striking you in secret; but by your own measure I measured you as well, since you too are in secret, and a first name is nothing, and you arrogantly strike the whole world and his sister with the rod of your tongue.
And indeed, as you hinted, “cursed is he who strikes” can be read as subject and object, and also as object plus subject, and my thought was that whoever smells is the smelly one.

The lockdown is going to start soon. We learned about it in kindergarten.

Mom and Dad are stressed because the lockdown starts at two,
although Dad said that at most there are another 20 minutes of “extra lockdown time” for whoever didn’t make it.
On the last day of kindergarten, I was the daddy of lockdown and Talia was the mommy of lockdown,
and the kindergarten teacher told us a nice story about Hannah’le and the lockdown dress.
If I remember right, Hannah’le wanted to help her mother and the dress got dirty,
and then the whole lockdown she walked around in that same dirty dress—
because her mother told her it was a shame to wash it, since nobody would see her anyway.
—
When the lockdown started,
I saw other people walking around outside the lockdown boundary of two thousand cubits.
My brother, who studies in yeshiva, said you’re not allowed to desecrate a lockdown, and whoever desecrates it is tired.
Or liable for a bed, something like that.
My father also thinks you need to keep the lockdown, but he’s less extreme.
At the beginning of the lockdown, I heard him quoting Rabbi Gabriel Barbashi, who said:
“More than Israel kept the lockdown, the lockdown kept Israel.”
—
At first I didn’t understand how there could be people who don’t keep lockdown,
but Dad explained to me that we are religious and they are essential workers. And essential workers don’t keep lockdown.
“And what about that guy with the knitted kippah there who’s driving to work?” I asked a few days after Rosh Hashanah.
Dad looked at me, smiled, and said: “He’s from Essential Zionism. They’re allowed too.”
—
On the fifth day of lockdown, our air conditioner broke.
It was very hot, but it was impossible to drive and buy spare parts.
Mom gave Dad a look of “this is a life-and-death matter, and saving a life overrides lockdown,”
so Dad called our essential-worker neighbor, and tried to hint to him with a wink that it was hot without air conditioning.
But just before he got it, my middle brother,
who no longer believes in coronavirus and took off his mask,
took the car keys and said to my father,
“Enough already, there’s no coronavirus, stop with all this nonsense of yours.
Has anyone ever seen coronavirus? Spoken to it?
Do you really believe it came from Sinai?
Doesn’t it seem strange to you
that only the scientists see the coronavirus and tell you what you are and aren’t allowed to do?
And where was the coronavirus during the Holocaust?!”
—
My father was embarrassed
that our essential-worker neighbor could see that my brother doesn’t keep lockdown and doesn’t believe in coronavirus at all.
But that’s how it is in the Essential-Religious public; a lot of the guys took off the mask.
To their credit, when they come to their parents they are respectful and put on a mask,
but you can immediately see it has been folded in their pocket for a long time.
Some of them say you can believe in coronavirus even if you don’t keep 2 meters apart,
and do wear a mask, because the main thing is faith in the heart.
—
What do I know, I’m only a little kid—
but I heard Dad say to Mom, “If Israel keeps two lockdowns, they are immediately redeemed.”

. An Archimedean point in the plainest sense—really, literally…

To Cursed Is He Who Strikes,

I really don’t have the energy to write, so briefly:

You still haven’t understood. I was not kvetching about the situation. I pointed to a fact. If the people are bad, then the government and the police won’t be able to educate them, because they themselves will be bad—since they are part of the people themselves (and were chosen by them) and will have the same traits they do.

Education (and that includes a person educating himself) cannot be replaced by external coercion. Coercion is an auxiliary tool. It does not replace understanding.

A person who does not play the victim does not think of himself as a victim. Even if bad things happened to him, he will not be passive and reactive, but proactive. There is no such fact that the Jews were victims; the fact is that bad things were done to them. To be a victim is already a judgment (which depends on choice and shapes reality), and that is what non-Zionist Jews chose in every generation.

The people are bad, and if the government and its agencies were smarter and more energetic then the situation would be better. Surprising that this fits the analogy of thieves and police. Instead of the term “coercion,” I prefer the term “incentives,” and there is some understanding and some understanding. I didn’t understand the criticism of non-Zionist Jews in all generations, to whom bad things were done and who chose to feel like victims. How do you know what they chose to feel, and what reality was shaped by that choice? As mentioned, if it is within your power to provide an example, that would help.